this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024
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191
NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is talking nonsense. Its friends on Earth are worried (www.npr.org)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 78 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Instead of sending messages home in binary code, Voyager 1 is now just sending back alternating 1s and 0s. Dodd's team has tried the usual tricks to reset things — with no luck.

It looks like there's a problem with the onboard computer that takes data and packages it up to send back home. All of this computer technology is primitive compared to, say, the key fob that unlocks your car, says Dodd.

"The button you press to open the door of your car, that has more compute power than the Voyager spacecrafts do," she says. "It's remarkable that they keep flying, and that they've flown for 46-plus years."

Wow. I mean, yeah, but. Crazy.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's not remarkable they keep flying. They're in space, just moving along their vector.

It is remarkable they keep operating though.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

46 years of radiation, dust, and passing through the heliopause makes it pretty amazing that it's still flying and not an irradiated ball of welding spatter.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Space is super empty. Not hitting anything that would change its path or physically destroy isn't that wild.

Most stuff destroyed by time on earth is erosion or microbial breakdown, which isn't an issue in space.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago

Especially seeing the original flight plan was for 5 years.