NASA "pokes" Voyager 1 spacecraft and got a response!

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Commander Wallace

Laughing. I feel your pain. We have all been there at one point or another.

In all seriousness, the exploits of the voyager series of probes is nothing short of astounding. The scientists and engineers who envisioned and put together some of these early probes like the Voyager series with the inherent limitations of the technology of their times were and are absolutely brilliant. Of course, newer probes are more advanced.

Closer to home, kinda. I have watched video's of the Cassini-Huygen and Juno probes to our Gas Giants planets, Saturn and Jupiter, respectively and their moons. Cassini released the probe Huygen into the environment and atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Huygen transmitted data and video for almost an hour.

The technology and successes that have been made with Voyager have fueled and propelled more advanced probes that continue to explore our Solar System and beyond.
I included some of the Youtube links to the Cassini and Juno missions. I hope our scientifically minded Subsim members and readers enjoy them.








https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pbxZGBgphuw

What did they see on Titan? .....a sign saying 15 million miles to Walldrug, SD.

[Commander Wallace]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

What did they see on Titan? .....a sign saying 15 million miles to Walldrug, SD.

Not much, I'm afraid except a sign that said coming soon, a McDonalds restaurant and a Wal Mart superstore.

[Commander Wallace]

If anyone is interested, this is real time footage of the supernova of the massive sun / star Betelgeuse.

[Sean C]

↑ Meh. I'll believe it when I actually do see it.

I've been watching Betelgeuse since it was announced that its magnitude began changing drastically in late 2019. I looked at it as I was leaving work this evening, and I just stepped outside to have another look.

If and when it does explode, you won't need anyone to tell you about it. The following is from an earthsky.org article on the subject:

Most astronomers do not believe a supernova is imminent. For example, astronomers Richard Wasatonic and Edward Guinan, of Villanova University, postulate that the current dimming is due to an unusually extreme 425-day dimming cycle within the main 5.9-year one. Unusual, certainly, but nothing that indicates an imminent explosion.

[...]

However, one day Betelgeuse will explode and give us an amazing celestial show. It’ll be brighter in our sky than a full moon, and possibly visible in daytime!

[August]

I'm all in favor of getting humans living on other planets and moons so that our species can't be completely wiped out by a single meteor, disease, war or other cataclysmic event. Right now all of humanities eggs are in one earth basket. Let get bases and colonies going throughout the solar system.

[Commander Wallace]

Originally Posted by Sean C

↑ Meh. I'll believe it when I actually do see it.

I've been watching Betelgeuse since it was announced that its magnitude began changing drastically in late 2019. I looked at it as I was leaving work this evening, and I just stepped outside to have another look.

If and when it does explode, you won't need anyone to tell you about it. The following is from an earthsky.org article on the subject:

I'm sure when it explodes, we will see it, as you said. This event may well just be a precursor to the actual Supernova, which has been expected for some time.

[ET2SN]

Originally Posted by Commander Wallace

I'm sure when it explodes, we will see it, as you said. This event may well just be a precursor to the actual Supernova, which has been expected for some time.

Just FYI, it will take about 640 years from the time it explodes until we'll see it.

[Commander Wallace]

Originally Posted by ET2SN

Just FYI, it will take about 640 years from the time it explodes until we'll see it.

Yes, I know. I understand the concept of expressing great distances in light years. The distance is mind boggling, especially considering that light speed is 186,000 miles per second.

[August]

Originally Posted by ET2SN

Just FYI, it will take about 640 years from the time it explodes until we'll see it.

Do we know for sure that it didn't already explode about 639 years ago?

[Commander Wallace]

Originally Posted by August

Do we know for sure that it didn't already explode about 639 years ago?

With Betelgeuse being about 700 light years away, It probably already has gone Supernova.

[Platapus]

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-...dates-to-earth


NASA’s Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth

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.



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.


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.

They got some smart people there at JPL