back to article SOHO, the two-year mission that forgot to retire, finally faces sunset

ESA and NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is approaching what could be its final year of operations as it hits the 29th anniversary of its launch. The mission took off from Cape Canaveral's LC36-B on December 2, 1995, and was designed for a nominal lifetime of two years. The original objective was to answer …

  1. heyrick Silver badge
    Pint

    A beer because that's some serious over engineering. Just a crying shame that it'll meet it's end due to beancounters...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not if its scheduled to launch on a ULA rocket...

    I don't think they'll be ready.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Not if its scheduled to launch on a ULA rocket...

      I thought they were getting rid of NOAA ?

  3. Terry 6 Silver badge
    FAIL

    Who writes this stuff? Was it an AI?

    I quote "rendering SOHO redundant unless more funding can be found."

    Either it's becoming redundant or it's not. If they find a few dollars down the back of the sofa it would not become any less redundant if it is actually redundant. If they don't find the cash and it's still capable of doing useful work that isn't being done elsewhere, then it isn't redundant- just unfunded.

    1. kennethrc

      Re: Who writes this stuff? Was it an AI?

      Admittedly this is just based on my viewing of British TV, but it was my understanding that being "made redundant" is somewhat akin to "being fired", i.e., a UK-ism?

      1. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: Who writes this stuff? Was it an AI?

        A person doesn't get made redundant, it's the job that does. That means that the employer can't make someone redundant and then hire a replacement. Therein lies the difference between redundancy and being fired. (Noting that in the UK you can't fire someone without due cause)

    2. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      The other meaning of redundant

      Yeah, it's UK-ism. Being made redundant is being let go, laid off, no longer needed or working. We'll make that clearer.

      And no, we don't use AI to write. This is all human, as you can see.

      (And I hope this demonstrates why we try to use US spellings and terminology. Americans and other non-UK folks likely don't get Britishisms but British people can get Americanisms at least, I think due to the differential in level of cultural exposure. As we scale up to more and more readers around the world, using UK terms confuses more and more people.)

      C.

      1. david 12 Silver badge

        Re: The other meaning of redundant

        Note that the UK is not an "at will" employment regime. Being "made redundant" means your job no longer exists -- either because 'cars have replaced horses', or because they are going broke, but perhaps just as a plausible excuse.

        In theory, an example like this, where your job no longer exists because they've employed somebody else to do the same job, but better, is cheating, and in theory they should have to pay you out, you aren't really redundant, they've just fired you.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: The other meaning of redundant

          Or in this case cos they demand a return to office and you're hanging around a million miles away getting some sun

      2. What? Me worry?
        Meh

        Re: The other meaning of redundant

        No, please don't. Keep the british-isms. There's enough US influence in social media, tv shows, movies, etc. If I want to read US publication with US perspective and language, I've got all of Ars, Wired, Toms Hardware, Verge, etc for that. El Reg is where I get my UK (and sometimes Euro) centric info and perspectives.

      3. Jan 0

        Re: The other meaning of redundant

        @diodesign That's probably an argument for using Indian English, rather than USA English. Personally, I love it when we get articles from the Antipodes. Let's leave it as a free for all, or standardise on the original.

        Would you do this with units? Let's stay with ElReg and SI units only.

        Apart from that, diodesign articles are a model of good technical journalism and I 'm pleased that you read and respond to comments.

        1. Terry 6 Silver badge

          Re: The other meaning of redundant

          And that's fair enough. But in this story I'd say that @diodesign let rhetoric get in the way of sensible writing.

          As others have already noted, in the UK at least, "redundancy" has a specific meaning. The role ceases to exist, so the employee loses their job. If the role continues on the same, or reasonably close to the same, so that the incumbent could still do it ( arguably with some reasonable retraining) that's not redundancy that's (probably unfair) dismissal.And employment rights are protected here. This isn't the USA.

          1. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: The other meaning of redundant

            "And employment rights are protected here. This isn't the USA."

            Depending on the State, there can be quite a lot of employee protections and an employer can be taken to task for an abrupt sacking. Even if the employer didn't go through all of the motions, you may not do well to fight for a job where they obviously don't want you. I've been the boss and the employee which makes me un-hireable in some people's thinking. I know the required process to make a firing stick and not have repercussions on the employer. That makes me dangerous. Knowledge to the People!

      4. Xalran
        Pint

        Re: The other meaning of redundant

        Keep the British-isms, that's what makes El Reg different...

        Have a pint on behalf of this Frog living on the other end of the Channel Tunnel. ===>

      5. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: The other meaning of redundant

        The definition can also mean something that is duplicative. In this case, a new platform with more modern sensors, better data rates, more on-board processing and that sort of thing would make SOHO readings look ancient. It would still be useful in certain situations. When the news shows a compilation from multiple door cameras, the issue that it's often low quality footage isn't a problem. By editing that muck together, a least some story can be told even if we can't make out a face or the number plate of the car. It could also be that one camera is of very good quality so we do see who the person is or can read the number plate of the car for the views that the camera can get while the other cameras tell more of the entire story, just in less detail.

        I'd suggest staying with Right-pondian usages and definitions. Those that know and all that. You can omit the excess vowels in many words between US and UK spellings. Even as much time as I've spent in the UK, I've never got the hang of that.

    3. david 12 Silver badge

      Re: Who writes this stuff? Was it an AI?

      it's still capable of doing useful work that isn't being done elsewhere,

      That's still a narrow definition. I could hire a servant that is cable of ding useful work that isn't being done, but still redundant if I'd rather spend the money on booze.

    4. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: Who writes this stuff? Was it an AI?

      100% not. And the author claiming UK-British English should know this. "Redundant" means that the role no longer exists . It's been cut in its entirety, or else already being done by someone else as well.In the UK redundancy has specific legal requirements. Otherwise it's dismissal- and with the right to claim for unfair dismissal if the employer can't cobble together an excuse that holds water.

    5. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: Who writes this stuff? Was it an AI?

      "If they don't find the cash and it's still capable of doing useful work that isn't being done elsewhere, then it isn't redundant- just unfunded."

      Given the costs of these sorts of missions, I'm in favor of letting them run until they can run no more. It really shouldn't be that expensive to collect the data and do whatever orbital maintenance needs to be done. Even if it's data becomes somewhat redundant due to new platforms, it's data and chances are it can be used for something. I expect that the big costs would come from employing a room full of scientists to do the data analysis on a continuous basis more than downloading it and sticking it on a drive somewhere. The final job for those scientists might be to write up a how-to manual and make the whole package available to universities for their science programs.

  4. DS999 Silver badge
    Trollface

    Maybe SOHO's datacenter flooded too

    And they'd rather retire it than try to recover!

  5. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    WTF?

    British-isms

    In general, I find our use of language more precise than that of most Americans. Therefore I don't want to see the quality of El Reg getting reduced to the lowest common denominator - as seems to be happening. If it continues, then no doubt there will come the time when I'd run out of patience and leave.

    P.S.

    Before any bright wag says it. No, I won't let the door hit my arse on the way out. It's never happened yet, and not likely to.

    1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: British-isms

      ... and another thing...

      In the past I coached two people on English. One of them was European. The other one was Chinese.

      Both of them specifically wanted to learn and hear British English.

      1. Joe Gurman

        Re: British-isms

        Well, of course. They wanted to sound like posh imperialists.

  6. Wolfclaw
    Pint

    Don't make them like they used too, another round of beers on me for the designers and builders.

  7. Joe Gurman

    NOAA? Really?

    Things may have changed in the last six years (when I retired after 31 years of working on SOHO, from instrument proposal, software development, and science operation design before launch through science operations and management), but we never got one cent from NOAA despite their using SOHO data for forecasting. There was a brief time, after Hurricane Sandy in 2012, when it actually looked like NOAA might share some very modest costs for a backup data processing facility for the SOHO data they use, but that evaporated once it hit a certain level of management at NOAA.

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