Posted on 03/29/2018 5:54:55 PM PDT by Enchante
Send more Chuck Barry
Imagine the sensitivity of the instruments needed to detect that signal from Voyager.
Is the signal being received by the Hubble, one of those huge antennas on Earth? Curious.
Thanks. Was always curious what assembler code looked like.
“Is it the same as Machine Language?”
Closely related. Assembly language is a “pretty front end”, (sarcasm intended), to machine language.
Machine language is all 1’s and 0’s. Assembly looks something like:
MOV CX, 15
(Put a value of 15 in a register).
Up there. Somewhere...
Over the rainbow?
LOL
“...Is the signal being received by the Hubble, one of those huge antennas on Earth? Curious.” [poconopundit, post 82]
The Hubble Space Telescope senses near ultraviolet (300-400 nanometer wavelength), visible light (300-700 nanometer wavelength), and near infrared (750-1400 nanometer wavelength). Nothing to do with Voyager, nor other spacecraft.
Voyager 1 receives commands at a radio frequency of 2100 MHz, and sends responses at 2300 MHz and 8400 MHz. NASA’s Deep Space Network receives Voyager’s transmissions: antennas are all on Earth’s surface, at Goldstone (near Barstow, CA), near Madrid, in Spain, and near Canberra, in Australia.
Thank you. I learned something. It’s interesting.
“...Where this thing is, there’s no moisture, no change in temperature, no change in pressure, no bacteria, no oxygen - absolutely nothing which would cause rust or decay. They SHOULD work after 37 years!”
Voyager 1’s attitude control system has 16 main thrusters, and 8 backup thrusters, powered by hydrazine. There are also gryos, and referencing sensors, to allow the craft to determine its orientation and apply corrections, to keep the radio antenna pointing towards Earth.
I’d venture the opinion that the more-likely limitations here were the fuel supply, and the wear state of the gyros’ bearings. As mechanical devices, gyros have to spin to function, fuel tank seals must not leak, and valves must open and close. Structural integrity might have deteriorated after decades of bombardment by cosmic rays, gamma rays, and other radiation found in space. No machines have gone so far away, nor have any been subjected to cold-soak for so many years.
The microprocessors and their software have no such limitations - all they need is electrical power to keep going.
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