Voyager 1 has exited the Solar System?

"Tell Commander Lewis: Disco sucks !"

(nota bene: I nixed my message, it said something like "I don't care as long as they are still alive, busting the often repeated limit of 2025")
 
Hydroman said:
I agree too with you guys but the gold plated record I think also includes 1970's Disco music, this is not good, hostile alien lifeforms invading earth wearing polyester leisure suits and white patent leather shoes, oh the humanity of it all!
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For a while when vinyl went out, I was less concerned. Where were the aliens going to get a turntable and amplifier to even play the record in the CD then streaming music era? But with the recent resurgence in vinyl records, be afraid, be very afraid...
 
TJDougherty01 said:
For a while when vinyl went out, I was less concerned. Where were the aliens going to get a turntable and amplifier to even play the record in the CD then streaming music era? But with the recent resurgence in vinyl records, be afraid, be very afraid...
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Independence Day - Disco Resurgence!
 
Better than Henry Rollins screaming at ET

AW! AW! AW! AW! AWW!

Better for ET to see the FTL USS Enterprise and think we really have it.

The computers
hackaday.com

See The Computers That Powered The Voyager Space Program

Have you ever wanted to see the computers behind the first (and for now only) man-made objects to leave the heliosphere? [Gary Friedman] shows us, with an archived tour of JPL building 230 in the &…
hackaday.com hackaday.com
 
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Fixing Voyager: How NASA Restored Communications with Voyager 1 from Across the Solar System

Streamed live 5 hours ago
After more than four and a half decades exploring our solar system and beyond, Voyager 1 has had a challenging year. In November 2023, the spacecraft suddenly and unexpectedly stopped sending scientific and engineering data back to Earth, beginning a months-long process to diagnose and problem-solve with a spacecraft billions of miles away and built on systems designed in the 1970s.

Join us for a live talk to learn how the Voyager team at JPL – both current and retired – used an impressive combination of modern and past resources, detective work, trial and error, and decades of experience to solve the problem.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 are the only spacecraft ever to operate outside the heliosphere and continue to provide valuable scientific data from interstellar space.

Speakers:
Kareem Badaruddin, Voyager mission manager, NASA JPL
Dr. Linda Spilker, Voyager project scientist, NASA JPL

Host:
Gregory Smith, communications and education directorate, NASA JPL

Co-host:
Calla Cofield, media relations specialist, NASA JPL

(Original Air Date: Nov. 21, 2024)
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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpA8NBzzy00
 
Not again Flyaway? Voyager 1 is over forty years old so things are bound to go wrong sooner or later. And of course is still reliant on 1970s comunications technology to keep in touch with Earth.
 
That long black cloud is comin' down / I feel I'm knockin' on heaven's door ...
 
FighterJock said:
And of course is still reliant on 1970s comunications technology to keep in touch with Earth.
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On one end, yes. On the Earth end, NASA kept upgrading the DSN so its performance is now much better than what they had in the 1970s. The DSN could stay in contact with a Voyager-type transmitter at 200 AU. Voyager 1 is at about 150 AU now.
 
NASA engineers are turning off two instruments to ensure that the twin spacecraft, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, can continue exploring space beyond the limits of the solar system.
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To save energy for further interstellar exploration, mission engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) deactivated Voyager 1's cosmic ray subsystem experiment on Feb. 25. On March 24, they will shut down the low-energy charged particle instrument onboard Voyager 2.
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www.space.com

NASA switches off Voyager instruments to extend life of the two interstellar spacecraft 'Every day could be our last.'

"The Voyagers have been deep space rock stars since launch, and we want to keep it that way as long as possible!"
www.space.com www.space.com
 
So I wonder how long they could possibly extend the life of the Voyager probes by shutting down two instruments? It seems rather drastic doing that but I suppose that NASA/JPL have no choice in doing that to keep the probes running and sending back useful data about the edge of the Solar System.
 
Congrats and sitting/standing/free-falling ovations to Voyager on leaving the 3rd Rock from the Sun behind in the cosmic dust for good, mate - now on to that fateful V'Ger cosmic trainwreck hookup...
 
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FighterJock said:
So I wonder how long they could possibly extend the life of the Voyager probes by shutting down two instruments? It seems rather drastic doing that but I suppose that NASA/JPL have no choice in doing that to keep the probes running and sending back useful data about the edge of the Solar System.
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Shutting down those instruments doesn't extend the life of the Voyagers. Their life is dictated by the decay of the Pu-238 and the thermocouples in the RTGs. They have to stay within the available power, or risk brownouts that damage the spacecraft.

They've exhausted all alternative methods of reducing power draw: all heaters that can be switched off without ending the mission are off. They've reconfigured the power system to run on less margin.
So now the only choice left is to switch off one instrument at a time, or call it a day and switch off everything.

The plan is to keep going until available power drops below the level at which it can power one instrument.
 
Keeping Voyager Alive: NASA’s Project Scientist Faces Painful Choices as the Iconic Mission Nears Its End [Apr 5]

Gizmodo: What are the challenges that come with operating a mission for this long?

Spilker: The spacecraft was built in the 1970s, and so that’s the technology that we had in those days. And we didn’t have very much computer memory, so we had to be very careful and think through what we could do with this tiny amount of computer memory.

So the challenge with these aging components is, how long until a key piece fails? We’re well past the warranty of four years. We also have less power every year, about 4 watts less power so we have to find 4 watts per year to turn off on the spacecraft. The spacecraft had a lot of redundancy on it, so that means two of every computer and two of all the key components. We’ve been able to turn off those backup units, but we’re now at the point where, to really get a significant amount of power, all that’s left are some of the science instruments to turn off. So, that’s where we’re at.

Then, of course, if you have less power, the temperature goes down inside. There’s something called a bus that has all the electronics inside, and that’s getting colder and colder. Along the outside of the bus are these tiny lines of hydrazine that go to the thrusters, so we started to worry about the thermal constraints. How cold can the lines get before they freeze? How cold can some of these other components get before they stop working? So that’s another challenge.

“But we’re hopeful that we can get one, possibly two, spacecraft to the 50th anniversary in 2027.”
Then there are individual tiny thrusters that align the spacecraft and keep that antenna pointed at the Earth so we can send the data back, and they’re very slowly clogging up with little bits of silica, and so their puffs are getting weaker and weaker. That’s another challenge that we’re going through to balance.

But we’re hopeful that we can get one, possibly two, spacecraft to the 50th anniversary in 2027. Voyager’s golden anniversary, and perhaps even into the early 2030s with one, maybe two, science instruments.
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Now Juno is just starting to go on the fritz.

I wonder what the last thing to go on the Voyagers will be.

Perhaps one last command to burn into a spin with remaining power going into a steady radio tone to see how far we can hear it?
 
Five days ago Scott Manley uploaded this video about the first interstellar software update inhibitory:


In November 2023 Voyager 1 stopped communicating with Earth, the telemetry it was sending contained no information, but engineers working on the spacecraft could tell it was still listening. It would take months of experimenting to understand the problem and develop a fix using techniques that had never been employed before and designing software for a 50 year old computer using pen and paper.
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Based on presentations by Bruce Waggoner and David Cummings - check out the originals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YgebbAqVmY
• Bruce Waggoner Saving Voyager 1
• How We Diagnosed and Fixed the 2023 Voyage...
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A solar foci scope needs to be 500 AU out. Voyager will be in the process of leaving the Solar System for the next several thousand years.

I wouldn't call it interstellar until it gets a parsec out.
 
50 years in deep space, and Voyager still can't escape budget gravity [Oct 10]

The mission currently costs approximately $5 million per year, although an exact figure is difficult to ascertain, not least because the US space agency has been affected by the federal shutdown.

One source that asked to remain anonymous told The Register: "We're a bit annoyed that Voyager has lost 26 percent of its budget... It's so bloody small... The whole thing is absolutely outrageous."
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