Voyager 1 sends readable message to Earth
March 17, 2024 9:05 AM Subscribe
After 4 nail-biting months of gibberish, Voyager 1 is making sense again. Since November 2023, the almost-50-year-old spacecraft has been experiencing trouble with its onboard computers. Although Voyager 1, one of NASA's longest-lived space missions, has been sending a steady radio signal to Earth, it hasn't contained any usable data. Now, there may be hope for recovery.
The NASA blog post/press release this article is based on.
posted by zamboni at 9:16 AM on March 17 [8 favorites]
posted by zamboni at 9:16 AM on March 17 [8 favorites]
So, we sent it to the depths of space, it went mad for a while, and now it's apparently okay again?
Don't trust it. Don't listen to it. If it sends us the plans for anything, do not build it.
posted by MrVisible at 9:25 AM on March 17 [97 favorites]
Don't trust it. Don't listen to it. If it sends us the plans for anything, do not build it.
posted by MrVisible at 9:25 AM on March 17 [97 favorites]
the signal contained a readout of the entire FDS memory
core dumps: still useful!
posted by Nelson at 9:37 AM on March 17 [38 favorites]
core dumps: still useful!
posted by Nelson at 9:37 AM on March 17 [38 favorites]
Voyager just lost track of time, staring at the stars, give it some leeway. It’s moved beyond our human-scale sense of distance; why should it cling to our human-scale sense of time?
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:58 AM on March 17 [15 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:58 AM on March 17 [15 favorites]
Aliens: "Can you send them some sort of unexpected or misformated message to create confusion and absorb their attention while we commence the launch of the armada?"
V1: "WATCH THIS MY BROS"
posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only at 10:13 AM on March 17 [5 favorites]
V1: "WATCH THIS MY BROS"
posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only at 10:13 AM on March 17 [5 favorites]
EXTERMINATE!!
posted by briank at 10:16 AM on March 17 [4 favorites]
posted by briank at 10:16 AM on March 17 [4 favorites]
This single event deserves a deep dive documentary, maybe an entire graduate course given to it.
posted by mhoye at 10:23 AM on March 17 [7 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 10:23 AM on March 17 [7 favorites]
This new signal resulted from a command sent to Voyager 1 on March 1. Called a “poke” by the team, the command is meant to gently prompt the FDS to try different sequences in its software package in case the issue could be resolved by going around a corrupted section.Speaking as a former embedded-systems developer, I can guarantee you there are engineers on that team who read that paragraph and rolled their eyes hard enough to snap their optic nerves.
posted by flabdablet at 10:27 AM on March 17 [28 favorites]
now it's apparently okay again?
Not even close. The team now has both pre-failure and post-failure core dumps, is all. That might well be enough to work out what's wrong, but whether or not they can fix it is yet to be determined.
posted by flabdablet at 10:31 AM on March 17 [11 favorites]
Not even close. The team now has both pre-failure and post-failure core dumps, is all. That might well be enough to work out what's wrong, but whether or not they can fix it is yet to be determined.
posted by flabdablet at 10:31 AM on March 17 [11 favorites]
I'm with mhoye, I'd love a deep technical dive on the work they're doing. Maybe a Ken Shirriff-style writeup of the FDS and how it works. But purely for entertainment in my case, I'm far too nervous to ever actually be responsible for such high risk engineering.
I did find a couple of details. Wired says "The computers aboard the Voyager probes each have 69.63 kilobytes of memory, total." That's more than I thought! Not sure if that's across all the computing systems though, the FDS itself might be smaller.
This discussion says Voyager 1 communicates at 160 bits / second. That works out to just about an hour to send the whole core. Presumably a lot more given requirements for error correction, etc. Doable but not easy.
This other article notes "The Voyager FDS would be the first spaceflight computer to use CMOS volatile memory. This was a big step since it was a fairly new technology". Lots of details not there though, presumably it's all radiation hardened and maybe has some sort of error detection or correction in the hardware.
posted by Nelson at 11:22 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
I did find a couple of details. Wired says "The computers aboard the Voyager probes each have 69.63 kilobytes of memory, total." That's more than I thought! Not sure if that's across all the computing systems though, the FDS itself might be smaller.
This discussion says Voyager 1 communicates at 160 bits / second. That works out to just about an hour to send the whole core. Presumably a lot more given requirements for error correction, etc. Doable but not easy.
This other article notes "The Voyager FDS would be the first spaceflight computer to use CMOS volatile memory. This was a big step since it was a fairly new technology". Lots of details not there though, presumably it's all radiation hardened and maybe has some sort of error detection or correction in the hardware.
posted by Nelson at 11:22 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
Except now it's referring to itself as… "V'ger" (?!)
posted by mazola at 11:24 AM on March 17 [28 favorites]
posted by mazola at 11:24 AM on March 17 [28 favorites]
Carbon units. Transmit the information now.
posted by credulous at 12:01 PM on March 17 [5 favorites]
posted by credulous at 12:01 PM on March 17 [5 favorites]
Conversation at NASA right now:
"It appears to have switched to the phonograph backup storage and turned around for home. On its current trajectory, it should land... deep down in Louisiana."
"You mean, close to New Orleans?"
"Exactly. Way back up in the woods among the evergreens."
posted by pracowity at 12:25 PM on March 17 [10 favorites]
"It appears to have switched to the phonograph backup storage and turned around for home. On its current trajectory, it should land... deep down in Louisiana."
"You mean, close to New Orleans?"
"Exactly. Way back up in the woods among the evergreens."
posted by pracowity at 12:25 PM on March 17 [10 favorites]
How is stacking oranges in 24 dimensions related to receiving and decoding signals from the Voyagers?
posted by lock robster at 1:05 PM on March 17 [4 favorites]
posted by lock robster at 1:05 PM on March 17 [4 favorites]
This thread on the fortran-lang Discourse collects a bunch of the available resources about Voyager hardware and software.
posted by zamboni at 1:06 PM on March 17 [3 favorites]
posted by zamboni at 1:06 PM on March 17 [3 favorites]
Good for you V'ger. You fucking ROCK!
posted by Windopaene at 1:07 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
posted by Windopaene at 1:07 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
Did it join with the Creator?
posted by Melismata at 1:11 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
posted by Melismata at 1:11 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:24 PM on March 17 [4 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:24 PM on March 17 [4 favorites]
This thread on the fortran-lang Discourse collects a bunch of the available resources about Voyager
Wow. I haven't written Fortran in so long, I don't even remember what it looks like.
posted by pracowity at 1:28 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
Wow. I haven't written Fortran in so long, I don't even remember what it looks like.
posted by pracowity at 1:28 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
Back when I was a little boy, and I took that Fortran class in middle school, we had to write it with punch cards...
Also Basic at the University of Kansas in 1982...
posted by Windopaene at 1:37 PM on March 17 [5 favorites]
Also Basic at the University of Kansas in 1982...
posted by Windopaene at 1:37 PM on March 17 [5 favorites]
I'm old enough to remember when CMOS RAM started showing up in projects. And nobody trusted it to be reliable in any long-term form. So people threw all kinds of checksums and parity checks on the blocks to be sure. I'm positive Voyager had a crazy amount of redundancy in their storage systems.
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:38 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:38 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
Voyager I is, in my opinion, the greatest Earthling to have ever lived.
posted by signal at 1:56 PM on March 17 [10 favorites]
posted by signal at 1:56 PM on March 17 [10 favorites]
Check out the November 1986 Sci Am (PDF) covering the Voyager encounter with Uranus and the engineering that made it happen. I must have re-read this a dozen times as a kid.
posted by credulous at 2:40 PM on March 17 [13 favorites]
posted by credulous at 2:40 PM on March 17 [13 favorites]
Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.
posted by Naberius at 2:56 PM on March 17 [3 favorites]
posted by Naberius at 2:56 PM on March 17 [3 favorites]
I think you meant to say Tang…
posted by Windopaene at 3:20 PM on March 17 [3 favorites]
posted by Windopaene at 3:20 PM on March 17 [3 favorites]
What kinds of measures does NASA take to prevent us randos from communicating with Voyager or sending commands? It can’t be modern encryption, is it that the signal strength and direction are not known outside the mission team?
posted by migurski at 3:41 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
posted by migurski at 3:41 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
POKE 53281,0?
posted by MrGuilt at 3:55 PM on March 17 [11 favorites]
posted by MrGuilt at 3:55 PM on March 17 [11 favorites]
is it that the signal strength and direction are not known outside the mission team?
The frequency and other information is freely available. For example, from the website All About Circuits: “The uplink carrier frequency of Voyager 1 is 2114.676697 MHz and 2113.312500 MHz for Voyager 2. The uplink carrier can be modulated with command and/or ranging data. Commands are 16-bps, Manchester-encoded, biphase-modulated onto a 512 HZ square wave subcarrier.” But NASA has to use a lot of power to send the signal. According to that same article they send a 20 kilowatt signal, while Voyager’s transmitter is a whopping 23 watts. The signal is a billionth of a billionth of a watt when it gets here. They have massive antennas for a reason.
posted by azpenguin at 4:04 PM on March 17 [10 favorites]
The frequency and other information is freely available. For example, from the website All About Circuits: “The uplink carrier frequency of Voyager 1 is 2114.676697 MHz and 2113.312500 MHz for Voyager 2. The uplink carrier can be modulated with command and/or ranging data. Commands are 16-bps, Manchester-encoded, biphase-modulated onto a 512 HZ square wave subcarrier.” But NASA has to use a lot of power to send the signal. According to that same article they send a 20 kilowatt signal, while Voyager’s transmitter is a whopping 23 watts. The signal is a billionth of a billionth of a watt when it gets here. They have massive antennas for a reason.
posted by azpenguin at 4:04 PM on March 17 [10 favorites]
What kinds of measures does NASA take to prevent us randos from communicating with Voyager or sending commands?
I had a friend who worked on low Earth orbit civilian government satellites in the 90s. He told me at the time that it was mostly security through obscurity, they assumed no one would have the radio equipment or knowledge to send correctly formatted commands to the satellite. He also said there was an FTP server connected to exactly the radio gear you'd need and if you uploaded a properly formatted file, it'd be sent as commands to the satellite. The FTP server did at least have a password.
I imagine modern satellites are using strong crypto but I think you're right that a Voyager-era satellite would not be.
posted by Nelson at 4:05 PM on March 17 [5 favorites]
I had a friend who worked on low Earth orbit civilian government satellites in the 90s. He told me at the time that it was mostly security through obscurity, they assumed no one would have the radio equipment or knowledge to send correctly formatted commands to the satellite. He also said there was an FTP server connected to exactly the radio gear you'd need and if you uploaded a properly formatted file, it'd be sent as commands to the satellite. The FTP server did at least have a password.
I imagine modern satellites are using strong crypto but I think you're right that a Voyager-era satellite would not be.
posted by Nelson at 4:05 PM on March 17 [5 favorites]
.....the team discovered that the signal contained a readout of the entire FDS memory.
Voyager has uploaded its mindstate. It's expecting to die.
posted by Combat Wombat at 4:14 PM on March 17 [7 favorites]
Voyager has uploaded its mindstate. It's expecting to die.
posted by Combat Wombat at 4:14 PM on March 17 [7 favorites]
the November 1986 Sci Am (PDF) covering the Voyager encounter with Uranus
That is perhaps my all-time favorite magazine article.
posted by neuron at 6:17 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
That is perhaps my all-time favorite magazine article.
posted by neuron at 6:17 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
10
posted by clavdivs at 7:51 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 7:51 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
I imagine modern satellites are using strong crypto but I think you're right that a Voyager-era satellite would not be.
There was a talk at a security conference recently that disabused me of this notion. Apparently the standard protocols used in most modern satellites do support strong authentication, but it is often not used.
posted by wierdo at 6:52 AM on March 18
There was a talk at a security conference recently that disabused me of this notion. Apparently the standard protocols used in most modern satellites do support strong authentication, but it is often not used.
posted by wierdo at 6:52 AM on March 18
Voyager has uploaded its mindstate. It's expecting to die.
It broadcast nonsense to distract us while it reconfigured itself from a Voyager-class GCU to a Psychopath-class ROU. It has encountered something worth dying to protect us from. We should assume the worst and prepare accordingly.
posted by sharktopus at 10:26 AM on March 18 [5 favorites]
It broadcast nonsense to distract us while it reconfigured itself from a Voyager-class GCU to a Psychopath-class ROU. It has encountered something worth dying to protect us from. We should assume the worst and prepare accordingly.
posted by sharktopus at 10:26 AM on March 18 [5 favorites]
scroll down to 17776
Still wanna know if Nancy scored.
posted by azpenguin at 1:31 PM on March 18 [1 favorite]
Still wanna know if Nancy scored.
posted by azpenguin at 1:31 PM on March 18 [1 favorite]
Hello from the children of planet Earth
posted by sharktopus at 1:59 PM on March 18 [1 favorite]
posted by sharktopus at 1:59 PM on March 18 [1 favorite]
Don't trust it. Don't listen to it. If it sends us the plans for anything, do not build it.
posted by MrVisible
I'm at the point, I say please please please build it, I don't care anymore.
posted by symbioid at 3:31 PM on March 18 [3 favorites]
posted by MrVisible
I'm at the point, I say please please please build it, I don't care anymore.
posted by symbioid at 3:31 PM on March 18 [3 favorites]
If it sends us the plans for anything, do not build it.
Why not? Couldn't really do more harm than the things we've already built (and continue to build).
This may well be Voyager 1 in its death throes, but I still think it's incredibly cool that it's still hanging in there and functioning after traveling 24 billion kilometers. We can't even build a car to last a tiny fraction of that without needing repair.
posted by dg at 11:11 PM on March 18
Why not? Couldn't really do more harm than the things we've already built (and continue to build).
This may well be Voyager 1 in its death throes, but I still think it's incredibly cool that it's still hanging in there and functioning after traveling 24 billion kilometers. We can't even build a car to last a tiny fraction of that without needing repair.
posted by dg at 11:11 PM on March 18
We can't even build a car to last a tiny fraction of that without needing repair
Might be able to, at Voyager's price point.
posted by flabdablet at 9:19 AM on March 19 [1 favorite]
Might be able to, at Voyager's price point.
posted by flabdablet at 9:19 AM on March 19 [1 favorite]
Well, the cost of building both Voyager craft was apparently $861m, most of which would actually be R&D cost that can't be amortised because they only produced two. That's something like $25-26m in today's money - far, far less than the development cost for any new car today or in 1977.
Proportion of Voyager spacecraft built in 1977 and still operating - 100%. Proportion of cars built in 1977 and still operating - well, 1977 was about the peak of shitty disposable car building, so I'm confident it's way less than 100% and probably less than 10%.
Of course, if you talk about running costs, well, most cars don't need a team of engineers monitoring and guiding them 24/7 for the past 47 years, so ...
posted by dg at 4:54 PM on March 19 [1 favorite]
Proportion of Voyager spacecraft built in 1977 and still operating - 100%. Proportion of cars built in 1977 and still operating - well, 1977 was about the peak of shitty disposable car building, so I'm confident it's way less than 100% and probably less than 10%.
Of course, if you talk about running costs, well, most cars don't need a team of engineers monitoring and guiding them 24/7 for the past 47 years, so ...
posted by dg at 4:54 PM on March 19 [1 favorite]
Did you get the today's money calculation inverted? Usually the today's money amount is larger.
posted by Mitheral at 9:42 AM on March 20 [2 favorites]
posted by Mitheral at 9:42 AM on March 20 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I suck at maths and got that completely wrong. I think the premise still stands more or less, but the $ amount is completely wrong :-(
posted by dg at 3:28 PM on March 20
posted by dg at 3:28 PM on March 20
« Older Phreaking the memory care unit | "A strange Thing written upon a Glass Window in... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by srboisvert at 9:07 AM on March 17 [22 favorites]