BUILT TO LAST:Voyager 1 Just Phoned Home From 24 Billion KM Away On A Transmitter Not Used Since '81

BUILT TO LAST: Voyager 1 Just Phoned Home From 24 Billion Kilometers Away On A Transmitter Not Used Since 1981.

Now that's impressive.

'On October 18, the spacecraft did not respond. Voyager 1 uses an X-band radio transmitter to communicate with the Deep Space Network. The mission team knows its spacecraft and worked out that the command might have triggered the fault protection system, leading to a lower rate of data transmission with a change to the signal from the X-band transmitter.'

They put their minds to it.

'The team searched for that signal and were able to find it. The situation was a bit of a hiccup, but didn’t seem to cause any alarm. Not like last year, when the spacecraft started producing gibberish.'

They continued to press for a solution.

'With that in mind, the team started to look deeper. Then, on October 19, in a concerning development, the signal stopped altogether. Luckily, Voyager 1’s onboard computer somehow found a solution – a truly left-field one.'

Voyager 1's computer kept working on it, too.

“The flight team suspected that Voyager 1’s fault protection system was triggered twice more and that it turned off the X-band transmitter and switched to a second radio transmitter called the S-band,” NASA’s Tony Greicius writes in the Voyager Blog.

“While the S-band uses less power, Voyager 1 had not used it to communicate with Earth since 1981. It uses a different frequency than the X-band transmitters signal is significantly fainter. The flight team was not certain the S-band could be detected at Earth due to the spacecraft’s distance, but engineers with the Deep Space Network were able to find it.”

'The team has confirmed that the S-band transmitter is working well, even after all this time and at such an incredible distance. They are currently working to restore the spacecraft to its normal operations.'

'Parts of America still work — after almost 50 years and 15 billion miles.'

Now THAT'S what we're talking about!

Our best days are yet ahead.

Please discuss.

 

Jet Propulsion Laboratory has a good record for developing spacecraft that exceed their design parameters. Another example is the Opportunity rover which was designed to operate for 92.5 earth days on Mars and actually operated for 14 years and 138 days.

Robots are demonstrably superior to humans for space exploration. They have accomplished much more with far less funding.

 

that is the way they used to build stuff

 

Fascinating and impressive. By my calculations it takes a whole day for the radio signal to get here.

 

I'm fascinated how this thing has not hit into a space rock yet.

 

I think this is amazing.

 

NASA is a wonder of the World.