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To 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 uniqu
by wildzzz 2mo ago
To 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.