Posted on 04/23/2024 9:04:41 AM PDT by Red Badger
NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is depicted in this artist’s concept traveling through interstellar space, or the space between stars, which it entered in 2012. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After some inventive sleuthing, the mission team can — for the first time in five months — check the health and status of the most distant human-made object in existence.
For the first time since November, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems. The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again. The probe and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space (the space between stars).
Voyager 1 stopped sending readable science and engineering data back to Earth on Nov. 14, 2023, even though mission controllers could tell the spacecraft was still receiving their commands and otherwise operating normally. In March, the Voyager engineering team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed that the issue was tied to one of the spacecraft’s three onboard computers, called the flight data subsystem (FDS). The FDS is responsible for packaging the science and engineering data before it’s sent to Earth.
After receiving data about the health and status of Voyager 1 for the first time in five months, members of the Voyager flight team celebrate in a conference room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on April 20. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The team discovered that a single chip responsible for storing a portion of the FDS memory — including some of the FDS computer’s software code — isn’t working. The loss of that code rendered the science and engineering data unusable. Unable to repair the chip, the team decided to place the affected code elsewhere in the FDS memory. But no single location is large enough to hold the section of code in its entirety.
So they devised a plan to divide the affected code into sections and store those sections in different places in the FDS. To make this plan work, they also needed to adjust those code sections to ensure, for example, that they all still function as a whole. Any references to the location of that code in other parts of the FDS memory needed to be updated as well.
The team started by singling out the code responsible for packaging the spacecraft’s engineering data. They sent it to its new location in the FDS memory on April 18. A radio signal takes about 22 ½ hours to reach Voyager 1, which is over 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, and another 22 ½ hours for a signal to come back to Earth. When the mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on April 20, they saw that the modification worked: For the first time in five months, they have been able to check the health and status of the spacecraft.
During the coming weeks, the team will relocate and adjust the other affected portions of the FDS software. These include the portions that will start returning science data.
Voyager 2 continues to operate normally. Launched over 46 years ago, the twin Voyager spacecraft are the longest-running and most distant spacecraft in history. Before the start of their interstellar exploration, both probes flew by Saturn and Jupiter, and Voyager 2 flew by Uranus and Neptune.
Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA.
V-GER Phone Home..................
That’s the NASA we’re used to seeing!
Look at their picture. Not a Gen-X,Y or Z in the bunch..............
B . . . T . . . T . . . T
Except for that mask-wearing weenie in the doorway they all look normal.
More reliable that Windows updates.
That didn’t take long.
Yep, and I pray that the dude in the doorway has only a minor cold and doesn’t want to give it to any of his co-workers.
Built when NASA was all science and near zero politics.
Those people in the photo above, used to be in their 20s and 30s when the Voyager spacecraft were sent on their missions, now those people are in their 70s and 80s. ;)
Voyager 1 and 2 were intercepted by space aliens and their technology studie by those aliens, and they decided that, that tech wasn’t worth stealing, so, they allowed the voyagers to continue sending the worthless data back to Earth.
YAY!
Voyager makes a whole lot more sense than Biden & 90 percent of Congress
From what I’ve seen, it is quite rare to see many young people go into government technology work. It seems to be staffed by people who were hired when Reagan was president, or ex-military people working on their second career (government civilian or contractor to the government).
If I were snarky, I’d say that youngish people are too lazy to do the hard work required in the field of government technology work. But that’s not what I think.
I think it’s more accurate to say that the prehistoric technology, calcified bureaucracies, and crushingly stupid policies of government technology offices all ensure that no sensible young person would tolerate it. The smart ones know that it doesn’t have to be like that, it shouldn’t be like that, but that it will always be like that.
So we have senior citizens doing stuff. For awhile.
Some government sectors are still using ‘floppy discs’ to store data...................
Yup. I almost mentioned that.
The loss of that code rendered the science and engineering data unusable. Unable to repair the chip, the team decided to place the affected code elsewhere in the FDS memory. But no single location is large enough to hold the section of code in its entirety.It's incredible that they could do that at all. Equally incredible is that the team understands that ancient tech so well as to be able to devise and execute the fix.So they devised a plan to divide the affected code into sections and store those sections in different places in the FDS. To make this plan work, they also needed to adjust those code sections to ensure, for example, that they all still function as a whole. Any references to the location of that code in other parts of the FDS memory needed to be updated as well.
We need to stop driving SUVs immediately!
They had to ensure that the memory locations weren’t being used by some other sub routine and be written over by it during or before transfer...............
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.