Tuesday, November 05, 2024

Voyager Finally Phoned Home Via Device Unused Since 1981

This interstellar traveler is a survivor.

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... At 15.4 billion miles away from Earth in interstellar space, Voyager 1 won't last much longer.

In fact, NASA's flight engineers may have thought the 47-year-old mission had finally kicked the bucket when the uncrewed spacecraft recently went quiet. The probe had shut off its main radio transmitter for communicating with mission control.

Voyager's problem began on Oct. 16, when flight controllers sent the robotic explorer a somewhat routine command to turn on a heater. Two days later, when NASA expected to receive a response from the spacecraft, the team learned something tripped Voyager's fault protection system, which turned off its X-band transmitter. By Oct. 19, communication had altogether stopped.

The flight team was not optimistic.

However, Voyager 1 was equipped with a backup that relies on a different, albeit significantly fainter, frequency.

No one knew if the second radio transmitter could still work, given the aging spacecraft's extreme distance.

Days later, engineers with the Deep Space Network, a system of three enormous radio dish arrays on Earth, found the signal whispering back over the S-band transmitter. The device hadn't been used since 1981, according to NASA.

"The team is now working to gather information that will help them figure out what happened and return Voyager 1 to normal operations," NASA said in a recent mission update. ...



#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2024-11-04 06:05 PM

Voyager
science.nasa.gov

... Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 are the only spacecraft ever to operate outside the heliosphere, the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields generated by the Sun. Voyager 1 reached the interstellar boundary in 2012, while Voyager 2 (traveling slower and in a different direction than its twin) reached it in 2018. ...

Voyager 1
en.wikipedia.org

... Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System and the interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. It was launched 16 days after its twin, Voyager 2. It communicates through the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) to receive routine commands and to transmit data to Earth. Real-time distance and velocity data are provided by NASA and JPL.[4] At a distance of 165.2 AU (24.7 billion km; 15.4 billion mi) from Earth as of October 2024,[4] it is the most distant human-made object from Earth.[5] ...

#2 | Posted by LampLighter at 2024-11-04 08:46 PM

@#2 .. launched by NASA on September 5, 1977 ...

So... those boomers did this?

#3 | Posted by LampLighter at 2024-11-04 08:46 PM

So... those boomers did this?

It's unmanned so faking it has been easier. :-)

#4 | Posted by REDIAL at 2024-11-04 08:52 PM

Yes, with slide rules, and pencil & paper...

OCU

#5 | Posted by OCUser at 2024-11-05 02:35 PM

I had a programmable calculator in 1975. I'll bet NASA engineers had them too.

#6 | Posted by visitor_ at 2024-11-05 04:22 PM

Amazing!

#7 | Posted by Twinpac at 2024-11-05 04:35 PM

43-year-old gear working in the vacuum of deep space. That's really impressive!

#8 | Posted by AMERICANUNITY at 2024-11-05 07:41 PM

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