back to article NASA mistakenly severs communication to Voyager 2

NASA revealed on Friday that its venerable Voyager 2 probe is currently incommunicado, because the space agency pointed its antenna in the wrong direction. By the time the news was released, the antenna on the spacecraft had been pointing two degrees away from the Earth for over a week. This left it without the ability to …

  1. Flak
    Go

    Voyager 1 & 2

    Two of the most amazing pieces of engineering and technology in modern times!

    'Go', because they just keep going!

    1. NoneSuch Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Voyager 1 & 2

      No meta data telemetry, no location pings, no silly apps installed and runs like a Swiss clock.

      The world can learn from this.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Voyager 1 & 2

        >No meta data telemetry, no location pings, no silly apps installed and runs like a Swiss clock.

        No management consoles if you accidentally turn off networking on the remote system

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Voyager 1 & 2

          "No management consoles if you accidentally turn off networking on the remote system"

          But, as per the article, they allowed for that by giving it a program to auto-recalibrate and reconnect if comms are lost :-)

          Would you need a management console to restore networking if the remote server, by default, waited for the comms for a length of time and if nothing is received, auto-roll back to the previous config?, eg you changed and fat fingered the IP address and lost contact, or downed the wrong Ethernet port?

          1. DonL

            Re: Voyager 1 & 2

            "Would you need a management console to restore networking if the remote server, by default, waited for the comms for a length of time and if nothing is received, auto-roll back to the previous config?"

            Professional networking equipment lets you do this. You can change the configuration and activate it. Then, unless you confirm the change within a definably number of minutes, it will automatically roll-back to the previous configuration.

            The equipment still also has a management console, for other issues that might occur (like hardware defects).

      2. electricmonk

        Re: Voyager 1 & 2

        "No location pings"?? Are you sure about that? Seems to me that sending location data is a vital part of its mission. "Yeah, we've got all this data but we don't know where the craft was when it collected it, because Data Protection."

    2. Marty McFly Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Voyager 1 & 2

      "Two of the most amazing pieces of engineering and technology in modern times!

      Uhhh... Not sure any computing tech from the early 1970's can still be considered "modern".

      That said, we would be hard pressed to find any of our actual modern 2020's tech still running after a same time duration. I'll check back in 2070 and we can compare notes. Cheers to the old-school tech's longevitiy!

      1. Cav Bronze badge

        Re: Voyager 1 & 2

        We are currently in the late modern age, which began in 1800.

        1. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

          Re: Voyager 1 & 2

          And we always will be.

      2. DS999 Silver badge
        Angel

        Re: Voyager 1 & 2

        That said, we would be hard pressed to find any of our actual modern 2020's tech still running after a same time duration. I'll check back in 2070 and we can compare notes

        I would check back myself in 2070 but I doubt I will still be running as I'm Apollo era "tech" myself!

        1. Sam not the Viking Silver badge
          Pint

          Re: Voyager 1 & 2

          I vaguely remember the hoo-hah following the launch of Sputnik 1 and I do recall the first TV pictures from Telstar!

          Strange to think that the Voyager programme must have been started a few years later.

      3. rajivdx

        Re: Voyager 1 & 2

        It's still the same technology - what have we invented since the 1970's that wasn't invented for Voyager? Its still the same transistors, same radio technology, we have actually regressed in space technology since then and stuff isn't built to last anymore. All our advances in software technology were developed to support the space program.

        All that has happened since then is that transistors have gotten smaller and faster as a result. More transistors means more complexity, but that increased complexity is not doing anything useful these days just running fancy graphics on our fancy phones and introducing more bugs.

        1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

          Re: Voyager 1 & 2

          All our advances in software technology were developed to support the space program.

          Until 1969, maybe. Not really since then.

        2. NightFox

          Re: Voyager 1 & 2

          "It's still the same technology - what have we invented since the 1970's that wasn't invented for Voyager?"

          I'll start the ball rolling with this: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2424996/Rollie-Eggmaster-gadget-puts-food-stick.html

    3. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: Voyager 1 & 2

      Actually, products of a different era of technology and engineering quality; I doubt much of the stuff being launched into space these pass few decades will last as long.

      1. Sudosu Bronze badge

        Re: Voyager 1 & 2

        Without reboots.

  2. Anonymous IV
    Happy

    Talk it up

    > the Voyagers are over 20 light hours from Earth, and communication crawls along at a tedious 160 bits per second.

    Let BT marketers get at that information and it will be described as Stunningly-Fast Broadband at the Speed of Light...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Talk it up

      BT Space Age Wifi - Our Wifi access points cover 20 light years of space and operate at superfast speeds* so you never have to worry about receiving that important email.

      *upto 160 bits, speed will vary at busy times and will gradually get shittier over time as our wifi hotspot moves further away from Earth.

      1. DJO Silver badge

        Re: Talk it up

        Not just fast but compact too with a discrete 25 metre parabolic dish, be the envy of your neighbours.

        1. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: Talk it up

          "Not just fast but compact too with a discrete 25 metre parabolic dish, be the envy of your neighbours."

          They use the 70m dishes to talk to the Voyager craft. I visited the ones in California and Canberra. Massive, they are.

    2. Lee D Silver badge

      Re: Talk it up

      They'll still call it fibre.

      1. Zarno
        Mushroom

        Re: Talk it up

        Well, because they have to consume a lot of fibre to push all that BT BS out, they have a surplus...

        Icon because there has been an explosion of "Fibre to that carpark 3 towns away, where we swap to RFC 2549 for the last leg."...

    3. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Talk it up

      >Stunningly-Fast Broadband at the Speed of Light...

      Fibre broadband Stunningly-Fast Broadband at 64% the Speed of Light...

    4. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Talk it up

      "Let BT marketers get at that information and it will be described as Stunningly-Fast Broadband at the Speed of Light..."

      ...and the poster child for why providers never talk about latency :-)

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Off topic

    Quote: "....a tedious 160 bits per second...."

    Yup.....tedious! In 1983, my trusty Osborne 01 had a 300 baud modem, used to communicate with Prestel.

    I can tell from actual experience that 300 baud is way worse than tedious.....I gave up on Prestel in short order!

    1. Primus Secundus Tertius

      Re: Off topic

      300 baud was adequate in the days when people communicated with grown-up text rather than childish pictures. But not so good for downloading large software packages.

      1. Lars Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: Off topic

        Baud rates and pictures, anybody who remembers Bullitt and how modern that was then.

      2. Mikel

        Re: Off topic

        "downloading large software packages."

        The meaning of the term "large software packages" was significantly different at the time.

        1. heyrick Silver badge

          Re: Off topic

          You used to be able to pull software from hidden pages on teletext, and that's not known for having been even remotely fast.

          1. The commentard formerly known as Mister_C Silver badge

            Re: Off topic

            Our polytechnic had a ceefax adaptor on one of the beebs in one of the labs. 1k per page refresh (every minute or so) for the freebie of the week.

            1. heyrick Silver badge

              Re: Off topic

              Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that our new Leftpondian Overlords won't have any idea what this is all about, and the joy of prodding TEXT, 6, 0, 6 to get the now&next of what was being broadcast, or p101 for the news headlines, and everybody knew what it meant when "888" popped up in the corner of the screen as a programme began.

              Teletext for the win! (and if you're old enough, the carousel was set to pleasing music on BBC 2 out of hours)

              1. Flightmode

                Re: Off topic

                > everybody knew what it meant when "888" popped up in the corner of the screen as a programme began.

                In Sweden we had 199 and 299 respectively for subtitles on the two public channels (meaning you could in theory watch a show on TV1 with the subtitles from TV2 superimposed to follow both programs); though I remember being very impressed with the 888 service in the UK when I moved there in 1988 - it was a lot more colourful (denoting different speakers and incidental sounds) - Sweden usually only had white-on-black subtitles, usually with the main character as yellow-on-black.

                What we also had, that was pretty nifty, was a transparent page with just solid black bars where the regular broadcast subtitles would go on non-Swedish shows, so that you could cover them up in order to practice your foreign language skills.

                'twas a simpler time.

            2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: Off topic

              "Our polytechnic had a ceefax adaptor on one of the beebs in one of the labs. 1k per page refresh (every minute or so) for the freebie of the week."

              I had access to one too. And the software to download as many pages as you wanted to a local disk, just set it going and come back after a coffee or three and get "instant" access to all the downloaded pages :-)

              1. MyffyW Silver badge

                Re: Off topic

                My flat mate built a teletext adapter for his PC as part of his final year project. He kindly offered to plug it into my PC bus, but I politely declined.

            3. ravenviz Silver badge

              Re: Off topic

              Someone brought in a Ceefax ‘box’ into our sixth form computer class and connected to one of the Beeb B’s, amazing it was! <starry-eyed emoji>

              1. Korev Silver badge
                Facepalm

                Re: Off topic

                My school had one on a BBC Model B too, some kids in my year got themselves in a lot of trouble for setting up a gambling syndicate based on the horse racing results on it!

        2. Ian Johnston Silver badge

          Re: Off topic

          Remember the happy days when the largest packages were 65MB because that was as much as you could through a 56k modem in a dial-up session with the standard two hour limit?

          Mind you, I still have a floppy disk (ask your grandparents, kids) with Netscape 0.9c on it. And Trumpet WinSock.

        3. NightFox

          Re: Off topic

          Hell yeah, I remember some of those large software packages took up nearly a whole floppy disk

          1. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
            Childcatcher

            Re: Off topic

            I remember when floppy disks were actually floppy.

            You can take your 3.5" and stick it where the sun don't shine (because the plastic case isn't UV stable, naturally)

      3. Glen Turner 666

        Re: Off topic

        300bps was not adequate. Even for grown-up text. With a start bit and a stop bit, 300bps conveniently converts to 30 characters a second. Or under half of a 80-column line. Of a 24-line display. In practical terms, that's 30 seconds to display the 1st ed UNIX manual page for the 'cat' command, a manual page of twelve lines.

        Local terminals were attached to the computer using RS-232 running at 9600bps. In practice that was fast enough for a full page refresh in about a second.

        1. tapanit

          Re: Off topic

          I remember using a teletype (that's a printing terminal without screen) with 110 baud connection, and it was perfectly adequate (the thing couldn't print faster than that anyway).

          1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge

            Re: Off topic

            Now, stop for a moment, and appreciate the mechanical wizardry required to convert serial to parallel to printing on paper.

            Thank you. We now continue with our digital life.

            1. imanidiot Silver badge

              Re: Off topic

              Teletypes gives my engineering brain that special fixx. Absolutely wonderful machines. I've been very close to buying one some time ago. Only reason I backed out was because I simply don't have the space to set it up currently (nor would the neighbors appreciate the noise probably.

              1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge

                Re: Off topic

                I had my own personal one when at uni. I bought it as scrap and discovered a Teletype Service Center in the next town over. Some tech took pity on the kid who brought in a basket of parts, and managed to turn it into a working machine, charging me only $150 (still a good chunk of change in 1973). Never knew who the guy was, but he has my eternal thanks. I ended up working as a Teletype repairman myself as a part time job at uni. Got myself a free mainframe account and some spending money, as well as learning how to repair and adjust my own machine!

                That machine served me well through 4 years of undergrad, and was replaced with a VT-05, which I cobbled together (including troubleshooting and repair of a defective backplane and modules) from defective parts while working over the summer at a DEC plant. There's no better way to learn than to take something broken and fix it! The VT-05 lasted me many more years, until it was time to start getting into PCs.

          2. Andy The Hat Silver badge

            Re: Off topic

            Just remember Saturday afternoons ... most will have seen the teletype head bouncing on Grandstand and not complained about the baud rate

            <pulse><pulse><pulse>Liverpool 4 : Manchester United <pulse><pulse>0<cr>

            Those were the days ... :-)

        2. milliemoo83

          Re: Off topic

          9600 baud is also fast enough for a bit of DOOM deathmatch over serial cable.

          1. Lil Endian
            Happy

            Re: Off topic

            Lawl! True enough :)

            Disclaimer: any references to criminal activity are purely fictitious for the sake of bravado!

            That reminds me of when my mate wanted to try Doom on his spanking new Pentium 1 (try before you buy). He plonked his rig on the "other desk" in my home office, the other side of the door to my cutting edge *cough* 686. I didn't have a serial cable to hand, so cobbled one together out of three 2-core bits of cut-offs I had laying around, just pins 2 and 3, you know the score. Laplink away!! "Come on" I said "That''ll take a while, let's go in the living room and pretend we're in "Up In Smoke". As I'm stepping over the cable, stretched between the desks and across the door, I mention to him to mind his step when following, I didn't want to have to twist the cables together again after all. Two seconds later I hear the complaining of two PCs moving violently across desk surfaces. I look over my shoulder to see him wobbling on one foot, with the other hooked over the mashed together cable, both PCs teetering on the edge of their respective desk! After unhooking him, Laplink still running! I certainly can twist some bits of copper together :D

            1. MyffyW Silver badge

              Re: Off topic

              I clearly have to rethink some of my morals, because I had to re-read your post two times before I spotted the potential criminal behaviour. Try before you buy ... *smiles*

              1. Lil Endian
                Pint

                Re: Off topic

                That leaves no stone, er, unturned...

                Thanks for playing :D

        3. DS999 Silver badge

          Re: Off topic

          Google tells me the average reading speed is 200 to 300 words per minute, which translates to 5 words per second at the high end. If you assume 5 letters and one space per word that's 30 characters per second.

          So 300 bps would seem to be well matched for something the typical person is reading along with. It is when you don't want to read all that is being sent but rather pick and choose that it would become painful.

          1. Dolvaran

            Re: Off topic

            Unless you got on the speed reading course at school - and ended up at over 2000 words per minute. Costs a fortune in books...

        4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Off topic

          "Local terminals were attached to the computer using RS-232 running at 9600bps."

          You were spoiled with a glass tty. If your terminal was a real teletype it communicated at max 10 characters per second, local or not.

          Kids today...

          1. MrBanana

            Re: Off topic

            In the first term at Uni we were only allowed to use the teletype terminals. But there were two types, the one everyone wanted had a type head that dropped down after printing so you could see what was being printed. The other type required a manual press of a button to raise the carriage to see anything - very annoying. We quickly found out the magic runes required to get the CRT terminals to route through the Gandalf box to get a usable connection to the PDP-11 - perhaps that was part of the first year test.

        5. david 12 Silver badge

          Re: Off topic

          30 characters per second is 5-6 words per second is 300 - 360 words per minute -- faster than most people read, even with normal text.

          I was reading fiction at 600 words per minute, but I couldn't read MAN pages at that rate -- 300bps was faster than I could read and process technical text.

        6. Ian Johnston Silver badge

          Re: Off topic

          300bps was not adequate.

          Which is why most 300/300 modems would also run at 1200/75.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Off topic

        Back then, if you could download a 'dodgy' picture at 18, you'd be 35 by the time it completed the download.

        1. Cruachan Bronze badge

          Re: Off topic

          From The IT Crowd: "Do you remember the internet at this speed? You'd be up all night and would see 8 ladies."

      5. Dolvaran

        Re: Off topic

        CompuServe on a 9k6 modem. Those were the days!

    2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: Off topic

      In the early 80s, the terminals in our Uni engineering department were linked to the mainframe at 110 bits/sec, and we still got productive work done. It just required a bit more planning.

      1. G.Y.

        Unix Re: Off topic

        Unix was born on tty33s , which is why commands are so short

    3. Jonathan Knight

      Re: Off topic

      In 1983 I was programming my A-Level computer science project on a 110 baud (bit/s) ASR 33 teletype shared with with all the other A and O level students.

      160 bit/s sounds pretty impressive to me.

      1. JRS
        Coat

        Re: Variation

        You were lucky.

        We 'ad to shout "ONE" and "ZERO" into a can tied to an old bit of string....

        1. tip pc Silver badge

          Re: Variation

          you jest but wasn't that long ago (ok actually it was) when people punched holes in tape or card for programming computers.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_programming_in_the_punched_card_era

          given the technological progression at the time, punched cards for programming was an obvious method

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card

          and of course there is morse code.

          1. DJO Silver badge

            Re: Variation

            Ah, you're not familiar with the ASR33 mentioned above. It was a teletype with a tape punch and reader bolted on the left side.

            My local tech college had a room with 8 of them connected to the minicomputer that filled the adjacent room and awarded each of the 8 users a massive 8k of core (yes "core", ferrite beads for memory) to play with.

            But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.

            1. usbac

              Re: Variation

              I still have a few BASIC programs in a box somewhere on paper tape from an ASR33. That was how we stored or "local" backups for programs we wrote on the CDC mainframe.

              It's funny to think just last week we were discussing vendors for backing up our cloud data. The need for local backups never changes.

              All of this "cloud" nonsense has just taken us back to the 70's...

          2. Nifty

            Re: Variation

            Sellotape and a hole punch are your friends. Oh and, my mother could read the gossip coming in on teleprinter tape by eye in her day one generation before.

            1. ravenviz Silver badge

              Re: Variation

              We still talked about submitting job cards decades after queuing became fully digital.

          3. Sam not the Viking Silver badge

            Re: Variation

            Speaking from personal experience, punched cards were a huge step forward from tape. Editing was so much easier. I still think in 'blocks' of procedures and hate it when someone answers a question I didn't ask:

            "When will <object x> be delivered?"

            "There's been a problem."

            1. DJO Silver badge

              Re: Variation

              punched cards were a huge step forward from tape.

              Until someone dropped a box of unnumbered cards (of course you always numbered them but strangely it was not a default option, at least not on the IBM 1130).

            2. DJO Silver badge

              Re: Variation

              Also on a technical point, a very early use of punched paper tape was for teletypes but it didn't really catch on for mainstream computing until the 1970's. Punched cards date back to Jacquard around 1804, the punched card as we now know it was introduced by Hollerith in 1890 for the US census and was adopted for computers by IBM in the early 1960's.

              So in every guise, punched tape came after punched cards.

              Yes there were much earlier experiments to "program" looms with paper tape but they didn't work very well, broke too easily, were expensive and complicated to make. They had to make the tape thicker and wider and ended up with cards sewn together, after that paper tape was largely forgotten until the telegraph came along.

              But as far as computing is concerned, cards came before tape.

        2. Trigonoceps occipitalis

          Re: Variation

          String! You were lucky. I had to hunt and kill 10 eland and tie their sinews together. Still I did have a can at both ends.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: Variation

            A whole can? Not a single can cut in half?

            1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: Variation

              You had a can? All we had were sea shells. Bloody whooshing interference on the listening end too!

              1. Korev Silver badge
                Coat

                Re: Variation

                You had a can? All we had were sea shells.

                C shell surely...

    4. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Off topic

      [Four Yorkshiremen]

      "300 baud! We *dreamed* of 300 baud! Let me tell you, upgrading from a Teletype at 110 baud to a VT-05* at 300 baud, we thought we'd died and gone to heaven!"

      * yes, this was me in 1978

    5. Crypto Monad Silver badge

      Re: Off topic

      > 300 baud is way worse than tedious.....I gave up on Prestel in short order!

      When I used Prestel, it was 1200/75 (down/up). A system where I could type faster than the modem could send my keystrokes :-)

      1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: Off topic

        I used to fix those modems, favorites were the Prism 2000's as 99.9% of the time the only thing that would fail would be the Voltage Regulators, the Prism 1000's used to suffer mainly from cracked PCBs while in transit & then there were the Voyagers..........

        Icon - Fun times.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: Off topic

          > then there were the Voyagers..........

          They seemed to last forever right? Even though the paint wore off the name

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: Off topic

            Their namesakes are still going - point of the article.

            1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge

              Re: Off topic

              More than the Voyager modems are.

    6. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Off topic

      "Yup.....tedious! In 1983, my trusty Osborne 01 had a 300 baud modem, used to communicate with Prestel."

      First time I used Preset, it was a 1200/75 modem. I never knew it worked with 300/300 too.

    7. mmonroe

      Re: Off topic 300 baud

      When we went to 2400 baud, we thought all of our Christmases had come at once!

      The last time I had anything to do with baud rates was 1999, when I worked for a large foundary. The server was stolen and dumped in the canal. A replacement server was sourced and after a couple of weeks, I thought everything was back up and running. I received a visit from somebody who wanted to know why his area was down. I didn't recognise him and he said he was from a portacabin, way down the back of the site. He had a Wyse 50 terminal and a printer, connected via two modems running over some copper than had been strung to the server room in the main office block. I had seen these modems in there, but assumed they were left over from something in the past. So I connected them to the server and his equipment started working. Checking, it was running as 1200 baud. I tried 9600, but the connection was unreliable. It worked at 4800 baud and he very impressed at the lightening fast prints.

    8. Sudosu Bronze badge

      Re: Off topic

      I remember attending a BBS meeting in the mid 80's where they were showing how much faster it would be to use your slow walking dog "Spot" to deliver information on floppy disks than it would be to transfer the data over the lines.

  4. Winkypop Silver badge
    Go

    Go you good things!

    Go!

  5. Doctor Evil

    Auto-correcting antenna aiming! Amazing!

    Hats off to the steely-eyed rocket men who considered the possibility that this might be a useful capability. In case, you know, somebody were to screw up and send Voyager an incorrect antenna-aiming command sequence. Which, of course, would never happen ...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Auto-correcting antenna aiming! Amazing!

      ... rocket men who considered the possibility that this might be a useful capability.

      Indeed ...

      And most importantly kept information/knowledge of this very useful capability from the AH accountants who would have said it was not needed, too expensive, etc.

      Because how could it be possible that ... somebody were to screw up and send Voyager an incorrect antenna-aiming command ... ?

      Eternal kudos to the chaps behind the Voyager missions, their work is truly exemplary.

      .

      1. ITS Retired

        Re: Auto-correcting antenna aiming! Amazing!

        "Eternal kudos to the chaps behind the Voyager missions, their work is truly exemplary."

        And doing it with both ends being moving targets, 20 plus light hours and growing, away from each other.

        1. ArrZarr Silver badge

          Re: Auto-correcting antenna aiming! Amazing!

          While I'm not seeing to downplay the technological achievement of the Voyager missions, given the distances involved and speeds involved, Earth and Voyager are functionally stationary in terms of angles & such over short periods. I cba to do the maths but even if Voyager 2 were moving perpendicular to the earth, the angles change incredibly slowly.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: Auto-correcting antenna aiming! Amazing!

            It depends on how wide the beam is.

    2. Mr F&*king Grumpy

      Re: Auto-correcting antenna aiming! Amazing!

      Misaligning the antenna on Voyager 2? Sounds like a entry for the Ultimate "Who, Me?" article....

      1. Sir Sham Cad

        Re: Auto-correcting antenna aiming! Amazing!

        And we only had 3 months of downtime as a result!

      2. DS999 Silver badge

        Re: Auto-correcting antenna aiming! Amazing!

        More like a "who, us?" column since this isn't one person just sending commands off the cuff, but they supposedly undergo multiple layers of review.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Auto-correcting antenna aiming! Amazing!

          Oh, I don't know. Maybe some "Howard" was trying to impress a girl, late one evening :-)

          1. Lil Endian
            Coat

            Re: Auto-correcting antenna aiming! Amazing!

            That'd make 'em a real wally wits...

      3. Sudosu Bronze badge

        Re: Auto-correcting antenna aiming! Amazing!

        Maybe it was a fault in the AE35 unit.

  6. Mr. V. Meldrew

    You go and point Voyager.

    Totally amazing, you get back to calling mother Earth.

  7. Plest Silver badge
    Go

    Today's gung-ho devs could learn a lot from that little miracle. You had to engineer and code something that would run on it's own for 45+ years and keep going long after you're gone. Most of the shite we get from companies barely runs for 45 mins!

  8. Bitsminer Silver badge

    Legacy systems

    It's been in space for 45 years. I expect very few of the original designers are still on the job, let alone still alive.

    How do you recruit for a position where the tech is so old, the visibility is so high, and any kind of screw-up makes the international news?

    Time for the astronaut's prayer.

    1. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: Legacy systems

      Very thorough on-boarding and knowledge transfer, exhaustive documentation and a flight analog running on the ground. It helps that the team is small and on average the people working on the projects had long careers such that iirc pretty much everyone now working on the project still got first hand training from those original to the project

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Legacy systems

      Sometime ago the Museum of Computing in Mountain View were able to get an IBM 1402 mainframe that after decades use was being retired. They had some concerns about whether they could find people to get it running and maintain it - someone suggested putting an appeal for volunteers in the IBM retirees magazine ... within days of publication they were inundated with offers of help! It's now on display and last time I visited they were doing daily demos of it in action.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Legacy systems

        OTOH https://ibms360.co.uk/ hasn't been updated for over a year.

  9. heyrick Silver badge

    And in next weeks "Who, me?"

    (see title)

  10. Version 1.0 Silver badge
    Happy

    On Topic

    I worked with a NASA engineer who had been in the Voyager project originally, he never discussed the project but was creating a medical data transmission function for us, something that I have worked on occasionally for 40 years now. It always worked perfectly and is 100% medically reliable. I assume that his creation for us was based on his original efforts in the Voyager program because the data transmission uses no software at all, it's completely digital and reliable so the data transfer rate is not "just data" - every one of the data samples includes a full CRC so any transmission errors are removed when the data is processed in his custom processor free receiver. Since it's all done with IC's (no processors) I still have a few of the original units working 100% after 40 years ... that seems to be the NASA environment.

    1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge

      Re: On Topic

      While in grad school, I took a class on error correcting codes from a prof who was a Big Name in the field. There's a whole book on them (Peterson& Weldon) and they are much, MUCH more than CRC.

      And, yes, there's a tutorial on doing it yourself. All you need is a suitable antenna :-)

      https://destevez.net/2021/09/decoding-voyager-1/

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: On Topic

        I did a 3rd year option in error correcting codes as part of my maths degree almost 40 years ago and even at that time the lecturer said he found it outstanding that NASA were still able to communicate with voyager given the vast distance away it was from earth in 1984!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What's 2 degrees away from Earth?

    We can't, like, send some kind of radio reflector to that place to help bounce the signal back to where it's supposed to be, can we?

    1. Draco
      Windows

      Re: What's 2 degrees away from Earth?

      Well, let's see ...

      The distance from Earth is 20 light hours. This is the radius. The angle is 2°.

      Using basic trigonometry: tan(2°) = (distance pointing away) ÷ (distance to Earth)

      0.03492 = (distance pointing away) ÷ (20 light hours)

      distance pointing away = 0.03492 * 20 light hours = 0.6981 light hours = 41.9 light minutes.

      The sun is 8 light minutes from the Earth.

      Depending on relative orbital position, the distance between Earth and Mars is anywhere from 5 to 20 light minutes.

      Depending on relative orbital positions, the distance between Earth and Jupiter is anywhere from 35 to 52 light minutes.

      So, to correct for a 2° aiming error, we would need to send a "reflector" somewhere out into Jupiter orbit zone in order to bounce off a signal between Earth and Voyager.

      1. Flightmode

        Re: What's 2 degrees away from Earth?

        Yeah, but it's only needed until October 15th, so maybe you could rush it?

      2. Lil Endian

        Re: What's 2 degrees away from Earth?

        I'd already decided I wasn't going to do this, but you inspired me Draco! So here's the same using AU (Astronomical Units).

        Conclusion: agreed, somewhere in between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn.

        (A) 1 AU = ~150 million km (0.150 billion km)

        (B) 1 AU ==> 8.3 light-minutes

        (C) Voyager 2 distance (km): 32 billion

        (D) Voyager 2 distance (AU): C/A = 213.333' AU

        (E) Sanity check, distance in light hours: D*B = 213.333' * 8.3 = 1770.666' lm = ~29.5 lh [seems about right]

        (F) Angular error: α = 2°

        (G) Error perpendicular to normal (intended direct line)

        Opposite (Error) = Adjacent (D) * TAN(α)

        Opposite (Error) = 213.333' * tan α = ~7.5 AU = 1.125B km

        Error perpendicular to normal = ~7.5 AU

        I've really gotta get out more...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What's 2 degrees away from Earth?

      Form that distance, 2 degrees is a loooong way!

      About 47 million miles if my crappy math skills are right?

    3. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: What's 2 degrees away from Earth?

      because of the distance, 2 degrees is a LONG way and istr the offset is "out of plane" of the planets, which means the antenna is currently pointed at a part of the universe currently pretty much guaranteed to be free of anything human made for a very long time to come.

      1. heyrick Silver badge

        Re: What's 2 degrees away from Earth?

        However, a duck will soon arrive...

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: What's 2 degrees away from Earth?

          ...and shit on the parcel DPD left "near by" for you because your were "out".

      2. Lars Silver badge
        Headmaster

        Re: What's 2 degrees away from Earth?

        It's exactly 2 degrees out of 360 degrees at any distance.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: What's 2 degrees away from Earth?

          ...in three dimension.

  12. spireite Silver badge
    Boffin

    Back then, when NASA/predecessor actually had quality and pride in its work..... whereas now their geeks just seem happy to get it on a pad, and its lifespan isn't much longer than that journey TO the pad.

    1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      Thumb Down

      I can't downvote you hard enough. The engineers for the Mars rovers and helicopter, as well as the Hubble and Webb telescopes, would like a word.

    2. heyrick Silver badge

      Downvoted also because while it was fun to watch the little helicopter take it's first short hops on Mars, there's a hell of a lot of engineering behind it. From doing everything possible to keep the weight down (so it can go at all) to having it unpack itself, to having it fly itself (because of the distance between the planets), to having it actually manage to fly and then land in an atmosphere that mankind has only ever experienced through the data sent back by various probes. An atmosphere quite different to that on earth, with gravity different to earth. Oh, and the terrain is epic dust and lots of rocks.

      The Opportunity rover was supposed to work for 90 days. It worked for fourteen years.

      Quality and pride, right bloody there.

      1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
        Boffin

        ...and bonus geek points for working "JPL" in Morse code into the wheel treads on one of the rovers.

  13. DoctorNine

    The definition of perspective

    I've been reading science fiction since the 1960's. In almost every novel or short story, the protagonist talks casually about how many light years away the action is taking place. Yet here, in the real world, our most profound effort at exploration, which is and was a crowning technical achievement of the human race, has only traveled LESS THAN A LIGHT DAY.

    It is import to realize sometimes how small and insignificant we all are.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good effort, must try harder

    32B KM is 1.23 light days away

    We seriously need to up our game if we are ever to actually start the space race and reach other star systems, this solar system is pretty dull in terms of diverse habitability.

    There is no space race currently in my view.

    Saying there is a space race is like saying you’re a professional swimmer but you haven’t made it out of the infant pool and you still need arm bands

    This is embarrassing

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Good effort, must try harder

      While some people thought the space race was about exploration with the aim of improving our survivability.

      The reality it is solely a military endeavour and these morons are more interested in taking out each others satellites.

      Some say adulthood is a myth, and I have to wholeheartedly agree. A lot of humans, especially those in the “leadership” roles, never grew past the school playground

  15. Big Tross

    Aliens.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It’s ALWAYS aliens

      1. heyrick Silver badge
        Coat

        Except when it's DNS.

        (mine's the one with the packet sniffer in the pocket)

      2. Lil Endian
        Alien

        "Aliens"! Your explanation for anything slightly peculiar is aliens.

        You lose your keys - it's aliens.

        A picture falls down - it's aliens.

        That day we used up a whole bog roll - aliens.

        1. Me.I.Am

          Just watched that Red Dwarf ep last night. Odd timing for a random quote from a 35 year old TV show whilst reading a random post on The Reg because I'm bored before work.

  16. Ian Johnston Silver badge

    If they lost contact with the Voyagers, how would NASA be able to continue the tradition of announcing that "Voyager X has just left the solar system (by another definition we just made up)" every time their budget looks a bit wobbly?

  17. Atomic Duetto

    They need the team from The Dish.. (movie)

    Al Burnett: Go ahead, Houston.

    NASA NCO: I've spoken to INCO, and we're no closer to finding this breakdown...are you sure the problem is downstream?

    Al Burnett: PKS... [we see Mitch and Glenn cringe] ...still on-line, Houston. Confirming loss of signal downstream.

    [Mitch and Glenn look up and slowly turn to Al, looking amazed]

    NASA NCO: Roger, PKS...will maintain alternative feed.

    Al Burnett: [putting the mic down] What have I done?

    Glenn Lathem: [offhand] Bullshitted NASA.

    Cliff Buxton: Good man, Al.

    Glenn Latham: Everything's fine.

    Al Burnett: Except we've lost Apollo 11!

    Glenn Latham: Well, except for that.

  18. Electric Panda

    Voyager amazes me

    Consider this.

    They have both maintained near enough 100% uptime and have worked continuously, near enough flawlessly, while moving ever deeper into space at an incredibly high speed. They are still able to send highly detailed images back to Earth and receive commands and instructions near enough no problem at all.

    Yet they were launched in the late 1970s. Rather primitive (relatively speaking) 1970s tech that is forever frozen in time, non-upgradeable, none of it can ever be patched or replaced. Yet it's still going. Some of the photos sent back in 1979 look like they could have been taken in 2009 because the quality is absolutely immense. It seems to have futureproofed itself absolutely beautifully.

    Back when the original Voyager was launched, we were just days away from the Atari 2600 being released. Elvis Presley had barely been dead a month. The late Queen had only just celebrated her Silver Jubilee, and we hadn't yet had a female Prime Minister. We were blasting long distance probes into space, but the mountain bike hadn't yet been invented.

    1. DJO Silver badge

      Re: Voyager amazes me

      ...ever deeper into space at an incredibly high speed.

      Well it's relative isn't it?

      Compared to stuff on and around the Earth 15,000m/s is quite speedy but on the grand scale of things 0.000052% of the speed of light is almost stationary.

      ...non-upgradeable, none of it can ever be patched...

      Not quite true, both craft have had their software updated several times either to deal with malfunctioning or power hungry hardware or to alter the science performed.

      But yes, a stunning achievement from all involved.

    2. HelpfulJohn

      Re: Voyager amazes me

      "They are still able to send highly detailed images back to Earth ..."

      Except that they don't. They do send data but they rarely give us any photographs any more which is a damned shame.

      I would realy like them to try binocular vision on some nearby stars and their worlds. Trinocular if the engineers could work Pluto Express into the mix.

      It would have been fun to take long-exposure images with both Voyagers, both Pioneers and the Pluto robot all targeting the same objects.

      Now, everyone tell me how and why that sort of shenangains are impossible. :)

      Could they do parallax on the same star? That would also be so very cool.

  19. breakfast
    Boffin

    How would it's stint end?

    "NASA reckons the situation is temporary and will not end the probe's nearly 46-year stint in space "

    Pretty sure that even if the communications were to fail entirely, it would continue to be in space.

  20. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge

    Ping!

    "Nasa has picked up a "heartbeat" signal from its Voyager 2 probe after it lost contact with it billions of miles away from Earth"

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-66371569

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Nasa has picked up a "heartbeat" signal from its Voyager 2 probe ...

    +1

    Beat me to it ... 8^D

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/aug/01/search-for-voyager-2-after-nasa-accidentally-sends-wrong-command

    .

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