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So, they have all the codes and manuals to be able to control the probe after 37 years. More than that people able to operate those manuals. DOCUMENTATION FTW.
by ramshanker 9y ago
So, they have all the codes and manuals to be able to control the probe after 37 years. More than that people able to operate those manuals.
DOCUMENTATION FTW.
- dkn 9y agoIt's a lot easier when it's literally impossible to change the functionality.
- Someone 9y agoThe voyagers can be upgraded remotely. It had too, as it doesn’t have enough memory to store a program for its full mission. AFAIK, the last update was in April 2010, “to delay turning off the AP Branch 2 backup heater for one year.“ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_2#Interstellar_mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_2#Interstellar_mission)
- taneq 9y ago> It had too, as it doesn’t have enough memory to store a program for its full mission. Don't you just hate it when they make devices rely on cloud services... :P
- WD-42 9y agoNot true, the voyagers can be in-flight reprogrammed: https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Ch6-2.html https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Ch6-2.html
- quotemstr 9y agoThey can not only be remotely upgraded, but remotely reprogrammed to avoid bad bits. 1970s computers were primitive by our standards, but not that primitive.
- DerfNet 9y agoMeanwhile, after two years my Android phone will brick itself.
- b3lvedere 9y agoA little difference in design specifications and requirements :)
- Florin_Andrei 9y ago> Meanwhile, after two years my Android phone will brick itself. I understand the sentiment, but your phone was not made to exit the solar system.
- AnssiH 9y agoFrom https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2017-310 https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2017-310 > "The Voyager flight team dug up decades-old data and examined the software that was coded in an outdated assembler language, to make sure we could safely test the thrusters," said Jones, chief engineer at JPL.
- AnkhMorporkian 9y agoI'm curious as to what they mean by 'outdated.' Is the actual language outdated or simply the architecture? I would assume the latter, but it's tough to tell. I just can't figure out how assembly could become outdated.
- tuukkah 9y agoEach processor has its own instruction set and thus assembly. Further, there are various assembly syntax dialects that can fall in and out of use. For example, the AT&T syntax and Intel syntax used for x86: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_assembly_language#Syntax https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_assembly_language#Syntax
- make3 9y agothey have the source too I suppose? they probably created a simulator to verify that they understood everything well, and because 19h is a long time
- olympus 9y agoNASA usually has a duplicate system (full mechanicals, not just a simulation) to test things on to make sure they don't create a brick. NASA can also use the dupes as a backup in case there is an accident during launch and the first system gets destroyed.
- forapurpose 9y agoI wonder how well the 37 year old duplicate mechanicals work.
- amptorn 9y agoWell... as long as they work precisely as well (or badly) as the 37-year-old originals do, that's perfect, right?
- asciimo 9y agoThey should be kept in a space-cold vacuum.
- olympus 9y agoThe point really isn't to make sure the valves work (the environment might have broken them after a few decades in space), the point is to make sure the code you're uploading doesn't brick the computer. It's nice to have an original computer and fully replicated signal path to make sure there aren't any unforseen bugs. Emulators have a tendency to have 99% coverage but the missing 1% is what would cause us to throw an expensive brick out of the solar system.
- oso2k 9y agoThis assertion is correct for the more recent robotic missions (Mars Science Lander, Mars Exploration Rovers (MER), Mars Pathfinder/Sojouner) but I don’t recall seeing or hearing about spares for earlier missions or satellite/spacecraft-based missions. Earlier missions would probably have had only an empty mechanical flight spare. I worked in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at JPL and was very familiar with the Technical Inventory Management team (the group that managed storage and logistics for reusable and non-reusable technology assets). Generally speaking, we built at least 3 versions (4 versions depending how you count). 1) Flight. The one put in the payload. 2) Flight spare. Often used in one of the 2 or 3 Mars test facilities at (the 2 Mars yards or simulation facility) and hooked up to a spare Ground Data System (controller system) via a 6 inch thick, 100 foot long “umbilical cord”. 3) A mechanical flight spare. A usually 80-90% mechanically accurate version that we called Bubba (at least for MER) that we’d pull out for Open House, or other special events and displays. 4) Lastly, I personally worked with subsystem flight spares (44u rack of the Satellite Communication Subsystem or the Flight Control System). Way too big to fit in a spacecraft in this configuration or a mock-up of the system. What might be a more interesting story is how we bought dozens and dozens of old SUN pizza boxes and Sparc Stations in the mid and late 2000s from eBay (literally) in order to be able maintain the Flight Ground Data System.
- celias 9y agoThis is a great article on the engineers who have spent their careers caring for the Voyagers https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/magazine/the-loyal-engineers-steering-nasas-voyager-probes-across-the-universe.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/magazine/the-loyal-engine...
- distances 9y agoThanks for the link, a very nice article indeed.