Engineers are confident that shutting down the LECP will give Voyager 1 about a year of breathing room. They are using the time to finalize a more ambitious energy-saving fix for both Voyagers they call “the Big Bang,” which is designed to further extend Voyager operations. The idea is to swap out a group of powered devices all at once — hence the nickname — turning some things off and replacing them with lower-power alternatives to keep the spacecraft warm enough to continue gathering science data.
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- 45 minutes
It is amazing they can detect and communicate to something with such a weak signal so far away.
- PattyMcB@lemmy.worldEnglish13 minutes
Why can’t we be as forward thinking as the people who created the voyager probes?
2 hoursWhat a badass little craft to have kept operating for so long. 🫡
NASA’s Voyager engineers are like the final evolution of your uncle that keeps his 1974 Chevy C/K running at 400,000 miles. It’s the same autism across an ocean of resources.
- Mirshe@lemmy.worldEnglish1 hour
Actually basically yes. NASA has had decades of practice at minimum viable operation capability, making their spacecraft and rovers all but drag themselves along even when anything else would stop working.
- 3 hours
RTGs are subject to the issue of half-life - this is a consequence of that type of power source. Though, let’s be honest: we do not have any other sort of power generation technology that would be viable for literal decades on an interstellar space probe. And we definitely didn’t have a better alternative when they were launched.
- neidu3@sh.itjust.worksEnglish3 hours
For roughly three milliseconds I thought to myself they shoulda used solar panels instead.
“Oh, wait…”
- 45 minutes
Well they could power a lamp that shines on the solar panels.
- 2 hours
When is the next conjunction of planets that enabled the Voyager missions happening and are we preparing for it?
- 43 minutes
The Voyager mission launched in 1977. If I recall correctly, it takes roughly 80 years for the planets to realign for that purpose. If I didn’t misremember, we’re about halfway through waiting.
- dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish16 minutes
1977…
Roughly 80 years
If I didn’t misremember, we’re about halfway through waiting.
A bit more than halfway, although sometimes I am shocked by how long ago 1977 was. Wasn’t it just, like, 30 years ago or so?
It can’t possibly be 49 years ago, can it?
- rc__buggy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish1 hour
which would shut down components on its own to safeguard the probe, requiring recovery by the flight team — a lengthy process that carries its own risks.
Uhhh… how the fuck are you planning on recovering it?
- dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish18 minutes
I think what they mean is that if the thing starts shutting stuff down on its own, the process to get those things started again is tedious. While if the humans tell it to shut things down, it is all more orderly.
- PattyMcB@lemmy.worldEnglish12 minutes
That bit confused me as well. I’m thinking in case the launch and deployment failed, they could get it back much more easily
- mierdabird@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish1 minute
This thing launched 50 years ago, it and it’s sister probe are farther from earth than anything else by multiple orders of magnitude, they’re literally outside the sun’s influence. We obviously aren’t getting them back so recovery must mean recovery to an operational state
- HubertManne@piefed.socialEnglish2 hours
would be great to have some solar that would power a beacon or something if it ever entered another star system.
- JasonDJ@lemmy.zipEnglish25 minutes
Wait does solar power work with other suns? Or just our sun (Sol)? Or just yellow dwarf suns?
- zalgotext@sh.itjust.worksEnglish9 minutes
Dawg you can shine a lightbulb at a solar panel and it’ll generate electricity. Them shits don’t care, a photon’s a photon
- 1 hour
Radiation and cold would have killed any electronics long before it would get to another system. And with the electronics dead, nothing would be able to tell the beacon to activate.
- HubertManne@piefed.socialEnglish1 hour
it would destroy them so when heated and energized they would not work?
