Technology @lemmy.world tomasz @lemmy.sieprawski.pl 1y ago

Voyager 1 stops communicating with Earth

edition.cnn.com Voyager 1 stops communicating with Earth due to computer issue | CNN

NASA’s 46-year-old Voyager 1 spacecraft has experienced a computer glitch that prevents it from returning science data to Earth from the solar system’s outer reaches.

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has experienced a computer glitch that’s causing a bit of a communication breakdown between the 46-year-old probe and its mission team on Earth.

76 comments

For those who didn’t read the article, voyager 1 is still sending and transmitting data. It’s stuck in a loop sending the same packets to Earth on repeat but it is receiving commands just fine. It’s not completely dark.
- So the title did its job which is you understand nothing until you enter their site, drive traffic, display ads, and possibly collect your data in the process.
  
  Sure and Lemmy did its work by letting me and others relay the info. I hate ads as much as the next guy, especially targeted ads, but the internet is free and I don’t pay CNN a dime so I’ll take the hit for you this time. Next time, you click the clickbait and fill us in ☺️
  
  possibly collect your data in the process
  
  Nooo they respect your privacy just share your stuff with 967 of their partners
  
  Ads are a shitty part of the internet experience, but what exactly is your point here…?
- Are we sure it isn't YouTube trying to insert an ad?
  
  This is the dumbest thing I've read today. You got a giggle out of me.
- How do we know that it's receiving commands fine? I am assuming pinging Voyager 1 might take a while.
  
  It takes 20+ hours so since the announcement and now they could have send a command and gotten a response
- I wonder if it's struggling with Parity Checks?
It’s gonna be a real pain in the ass to get a tech out there and look at it
- Good thing we have cheap labor at your disposal!
  
  Elon, get the fuck up there. Take bozos.
- uh have they tried rebooting it?
I don't blame it for cutting off earth. This place is toxic and self destructive.
- Love your name. Greatest band in human history.
  
  H off that album is one of my all time fav songs
Bit of a misleading title. The voyager can still receive commands and send data to earth, the problem is that instead of useful data it just keeps sending repeating code of no use. Not a huge fan of these sensationalized and just blatantly wrong news article titles.
- Would you consider someone screaming gibberish at you, communicating?
  
  Haha I mean that's fair. Although I'm mainly just displeased with the title of the article. Its worded in a way that conveys that we've lost contact with the satellite completely, which is not the case. Just a bit too click baity for my tastes.
  
  From what I read they can talk to the CCS (Computer Command System) just fine but the CCS is getting garbled data from the FDS (Flight Data Subsystem)
  
  Twitter?
  
  People do this on a daily basis.
Imagine if this were built with tech from today. It would be non-functional right after the warranty.
- Thanks, Uncle Facebook.
- Shrug, Opportunity is much newer and still lasted about a thousand times longer than its design length.
I have complete faith in Captain Janeway.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/sunspot/2023/12/12/engineers-working-to-resolve-issue-with-voyager-1-computer/

Engineers are working to resolve an issue with one of Voyager 1’s three onboard computers, called the flight data system (FDS). The spacecraft is receiving and executing commands sent from Earth; however, the FDS is not communicating properly with one of the probe’s subsystems, called the telemetry modulation unit (TMU). As a result, no science or engineering data is being sent back to Earth.
- So now they are going to send engineers to fix/ replace the unit?
  
  Letting a billion dollar piece of equipment go to waste is not very good either.
  
  Pac man iq right here.
  
  Please tell me this is a shitpost.
  
  The engineers would die of old age before they even caught up to it.
  
  Yep, but it will take them 46 years to fix.
You know what this means?
Why did they install Windows 11?
- Forced update, they took too long to restart.
Didn’t I recently read that they were updating its software?

…typical.
- "upgrading"
- They forgot to pay the subscription for the ~~solar panels~~ RTGs
  
  EDIT: I guess it relies more on nuclear than solar
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
- They actually did:
  
  The Voyager team sent commands over the weekend for the spacecraft to restart the flight data system, but no usable data has come back yet, according to NASA.
  
  Unfortunately, that didn't help. So now they'll have to find out what's causing this, and then see if they can fix it.
When the new intern presses shut down instead of disconnect while connected to the production server
- The question then is why the intern has access to the shut down button.
  
  Management got one IT guy managing the whole infrastructure so everyone who needs anything gets domain admin rights
- Ah, time to reconfigure the IP address. Just set that, and *click* bring down network port, and *click* bring it up again... *click* ... *click* ... oh.
  
  Based on a true story.
Well, I’m 46 and sometimes getting old is hard…
New communications unit who dis?
Was it something we said?
Hacker news thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38640900
So now it's v0yager
Womp womp.

76 comments