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.
Why can’t we be as forward thinking as the people who created the voyager probes?
It’s not profitable
not enough engineers use LSD anymore because they’ll lose their entire career over it and be blacklisted from government contracts forever.
the McCarthys won.
It is amazing they can detect and communicate to something with such a weak signal so far away.
What a badass little craft to have kept operating for so long. 🫡
Check out AMSAT-OSCAR 7 – Closer to home, but launched in 1974, and still waking up when there’s sun to operate. It’s the oldest “operational” satellite still up there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMSAT-OSCAR_7
Fucking A good on ya for the heads up. I somehow haven’t heard of this one.
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.
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.
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?
Jumper cables.
Makes me wonder how the jumper cables guy is doing.
Really long stick
New Hobby unlocked: Skyfishing
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.
That bit confused me as well. I’m thinking in case the launch and deployment failed, they could get it back much more easily
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
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.
For roughly three milliseconds I thought to myself they shoulda used solar panels instead.
“Oh, wait…”
Well they could power a lamp that shines on the solar panels.
Just use two of them!
When is the next conjunction of planets that enabled the Voyager missions happening and are we preparing for it?
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.
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?
would be great to have some solar that would power a beacon or something if it ever entered another star system.
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.
it would destroy them so when heated and energized they would not work?
Wait does solar power work with other suns? Or just our sun (Sol)? Or just yellow dwarf suns?
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
Yes and no. Photons is photons, but solar panels do have varying efficiency by light wavelengths, called spectral response.
as @zalgotext@sh.itjust.works said. it should depend a bit on how its made. there have been things about making panels that would absorb frequencies we have at night. There are trade offs. I was under the impression that the reason plants are green is because they specialize on the red side which is more prevalent and then the blue because its the most energetic or something. Also I was under the impression most stars look basically white but the color thing is based on spectrums that predominate but like when you look at the sun it looks white and even a red star would look mostly whitish.
Tick tock, unfortunately.
The clock ran out years ago. They have been building bridges to New clocks for decades. But yes. Soon it will die, only propelled forward into nothingness and loneliness forever.
Only delusion separates us from the same
