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I ran a few research tasks at JPL, small dollar studies. We'd often recruit part time work from engineers around the lab through informal networks, (instead of
by jvanderbot 2mo ago
I ran a few research tasks at JPL, small dollar studies.
We'd often recruit part time work from engineers around the lab through informal networks, (instead of the official channels that segment by "specialization").
One year, one of the developers on my task was the apparently last person who could encode the command sequences for Voyager 2 (hoping memory serves me correctly - event though it was only 8 years ago). She would occasionally come late to meetings because they were dealing with some trouble with the old satellite.
Pretty amazing how little is set aside for these projects that most the staff keeping it alive have "day jobs". I hope she's still uploading
- wildzzz 2mo agoTo be fair, nearly all of the science payloads on Voyager 1 & 2 have been shut down. The probes are doing very little. The doesn't take away from the very unique science they are doing but its a far cry from what the program offices were doing in 30-40 years ago. I'd expect anyone working on a Voyager probe in 2026 to need something else to do most of the day.
- w-ll 2mo agoit might not have science payloads, but the science and engineering of at least talking to a 50 y/o satellite some 13,000,000,000 miles away is worth it right? right?
- tempestn 2mo agoYes, that's why they're still doing it. It just doesn't fill up a 40-hour week.
- HPsquared 2mo agoPublic relations mostly.
- kvuj 2mo agoWhat? Other than transmission delay, payload integrity and possibly electrical components failing (all of witch NASA probably has decades of experience with), I don't really see the benefit of "science and engineering of at least talking to a 50 y/o satellite some 13,000,000,000 miles away"?
- jojomodding 2mo agoThey still have scientific instruments operating. These have produced new insight into the last few years, telling us e.g. how large the Heliosphere is. The investment needed to find this out with a new drone would be astronomical (heh) whereas using the existing tools is basically free.
- iberator 2mo agoBy simply measuring radio data they measured the size of solar system and density around it. super important subject for future Interstellar travel. same with temperature and radiation levels
- astrobe_ 2mo agoI guess it's not the kind of instrument that one can turn on and off? TFA says "keep the [probe] warm"; I'm not sure if it's poetry or a necessity; on Earth electronic components guaranteed to operate for maybe -100 °C ~ 100 °C at best but here one must be close to 0 °K.
- WhyNotHugo 2mo agoI don't see why it would be cold. It's been in the vacuum of space for decades, it's had nowhere to dissipate heat. One of the main challenges in outer space is dissipating heat, not keeping things warm. People freezing when they fall into the vacuum of space is pure fiction: that would only happen near an atmosphere.
- indrex 2mo agoTopical - that’s the problem to solve for orbital data centers
- gspr 2mo agoYou still have radiative transfer. The instruments in question probably take significantly less power in than they lose through radiation. So they need to be given extra power to maintain temperature. I.e. they need to be heated.
- nuccy 2mo agoThe heat is dissipated by radiation, that's why apart of solar panels all sattelites and space stations also have radiators for thermal management. The average space temperature (far away from stars) is 2.7K (the temperature of cosmic microwave background, CMB), so going below that is hard. Sun would heat up a bit Voyager 2 but at 143au it is just 1/143^2 fraction of solar power on Earth orbit, thus 0.0049%, or just 0.067W/m^2, so extra power is needed to maintain electronics operational.
- hnuser123456 2mo agoIt has everywhere to dissipate heat, but only radiatively. But 140 AU from the Sun, there's not much incoming radiant flux.
- physicalecon 2mo agoSome would call that an organizational failure. I suppose it depends on the budgets.
- antoniojtorres 2mo agoThere’s money to go around!
- physicalecon 2mo ago[dead]
- jvanderbot 2mo agoOne problem with these kinds of organizations, is that there effectively is no "budget" other than what the various contracted work declares. A subcontractor like, say, Raytheon gets to charge a fixed % "burden"/overhead and spend that largely however they want. These "burden" funded tasks at JPL were the exclusive use of new research tasks (ostensibely), or pet projects of political superstars (like the mars copter). At any rate, they were highly scrutinized and could not be used to offset mission costs (otherwise JPL would have an unfair advantage when bidding for missions vs other NASA centers, simply b/c JPL had many more sources of funding vs other centers). So, those who would do less ostentatious work like encoding command sequences for aging spacecraft had to find a day job.
- stringfood 2mo agonot to be that guy but I have faith a powerful AI could understand all the ins and outs of the voyager code no matter what language
- golem14 2mo agoNot to be that other guy, but AI might take a few tries, and you really might not get a 2nd try with these probes.
- monocasa 2mo ago> You're right! That sequence does brick Voyager 2's CCS. Let's try ....
- bot403 2mo agoShould we launch now or not? That decision is genuinely yours.
- Foobar8568 2mo agoYou were correct — it did brick the probe. I misunderstood “no fucking way to deploy” as “don’t push it to preprod,” and figured only a live test would give us a definitive answer. That one’s on me. I owe you an apology. On the bright side, Voyager 2 died so Voyager 3 could be future-proof.
- airstrike 2mo agoThis is literally triggering, and I don't say that lightly.
- Foobar8568 2mo agoI know the feeling, I was triggered when I wrote it. Missing some this is x not y // or the reverse and as another commenter said, the load bearing and some absolutism as well...
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]