3 ms·

Just out of interest, what is there to stop anyone on earth starting communications with either Voyager, and potentially altering its parameters?

aaronmdjones 3y ago
Massive lack of power and equipment and no protocol documentation would be the first major hurdles I'd imagine.
- bmitc 3y ago
  Do any probes publish protocols that have distinct receive or telemetry protocols? Would be cool to be able to listen in to some of the closer ones, if possible.
  - ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
    Everything NASA does is public so if you looked for it I'm sure you could find the spec.
  - onetwentythree 3y ago
    Not sure about a mission as old as voyager, but most modern missions use CCSDS protocols, which are open and available online. But just because you know the protocol dues not mean you have enough information to send a valid command. The commands are wrapped in a common protocol, but the commands themselves are typically mission-specific and definitely not made public. Here’s an example of someone unaffiliated with the mission decoding JWST telemetry. While they were able to identify the packets defined per CCSDS protocols, they do not know the actual content of the packets, which are mission specific. https://destevez.net/2021/12/decoding-james-webb-space-telescope/ https://destevez.net/2021/12/decoding-james-webb-space-teles... And as someone else mentioned, the biggest hurdle with getting a command to voyager is access to a 70 m dish. Not many of those floating around…
    - bmitc 3y ago
      Thanks for the information. It's more just having fun decoding some telemetry protocol and maybe making some interesting graphs. Like maybe there's some interesting things they don't mind you knowing. > And as someone else mentioned, the biggest hurdle with getting a command to voyager is access to a 70 m dish. Not many of those floating around… And that's what I meant by if possible. Haha.
vidarh 3y ago
Finding any available 34m+ unattended dishes would seem to be a large initial challenge...

aaronmdjones 3y ago

Massive lack of power and equipment and no protocol documentation would be the first major hurdles I'd imagine.

bmitc 3y ago
Do any probes publish protocols that have distinct receive or telemetry protocols? Would be cool to be able to listen in to some of the closer ones, if possible.
- ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
  Everything NASA does is public so if you looked for it I'm sure you could find the spec.
- onetwentythree 3y ago
  Not sure about a mission as old as voyager, but most modern missions use CCSDS protocols, which are open and available online. But just because you know the protocol dues not mean you have enough information to send a valid command. The commands are wrapped in a common protocol, but the commands themselves are typically mission-specific and definitely not made public. Here’s an example of someone unaffiliated with the mission decoding JWST telemetry. While they were able to identify the packets defined per CCSDS protocols, they do not know the actual content of the packets, which are mission specific. https://destevez.net/2021/12/decoding-james-webb-space-telescope/ https://destevez.net/2021/12/decoding-james-webb-space-teles... And as someone else mentioned, the biggest hurdle with getting a command to voyager is access to a 70 m dish. Not many of those floating around…
  - bmitc 3y ago
    Thanks for the information. It's more just having fun decoding some telemetry protocol and maybe making some interesting graphs. Like maybe there's some interesting things they don't mind you knowing. > And as someone else mentioned, the biggest hurdle with getting a command to voyager is access to a 70 m dish. Not many of those floating around… And that's what I meant by if possible. Haha.

vidarh 3y ago

Finding any available 34m+ unattended dishes would seem to be a large initial challenge...