NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has experienced a computer glitch that’s causing a bit of a communication breakdown between the 46-year-old probe and its mission team on Earth.

  • originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    For those who didn’t read the article, voyager 1 is still sending and transmitting data. It’s stuck in a loop sending the same packets to Earth on repeat but it is receiving commands just fine. It’s not completely dark.

    • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      That’s fantastic, that means all they have to do is reset some components and it should restore functionality. I say should, it’s still a scary thing to turn on/off components om a satellite bcz you aren’t guaranteed they’ll come on. Nasa people usually prefer soft resets to hard resets of components, but we’ll see what happens.

      One of the satellites I worked on had to have a software update to do a soft reset of a component every time it tried to write certain data. It was really scary bcz we thought we had lost one of our redundancies right after launch, which would have sucked.

      But, we didn’t. Anyway, just wanted to give a little bit of insight into what the FOT might be thinking about while they’re trying to recover the satellite to nominal state.

      • originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Yeah I got very sad when I saw the headline and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Voyager 1’s death will be far sadder than most public figures. Maybe any.

        • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Same, for a moment I was really concerned. Voyager is like a lifetime achievement for humanity at this point. When it stops communicating its going to be a big loss for the scientific community, and population as a whole. I’m not looking forward to hearing about its loss of functionality in the next decade or so.

        • gazter@aussie.zone
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          7 months ago

          I don’t know if I would consider Voyager to be ‘dead’ if it stops transmitting.

          If I put a message in a bottle, with a blinky light on it, then throw it into the ocean, the message is still there even if the blinky light goes out.

    • deleted@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      So the title did its job which is you understand nothing until you enter their site, drive traffic, display ads, and possibly collect your data in the process.

      • originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Sure and Lemmy did its work by letting me and others relay the info. I hate ads as much as the next guy, especially targeted ads, but the internet is free and I don’t pay CNN a dime so I’ll take the hit for you this time. Next time, you click the clickbait and fill us in ☺️

      • Exec@pawb.social
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        7 months ago

        possibly collect your data in the process

        Nooo they respect your privacy just share your stuff with 967 of their partners

        • deleted@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          My point is the title in journalism went from a summary of the story to a confusing false statement that might give you a hint of what the story is about.

          In this story the title is clearly saying Voyager has stopped communicating with Earth which is false.

          • hydroptic@sopuli.xyz
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            7 months ago

            My point is the title in journalism went from a summary of the story to a confusing false statement that might give you a hint of what the story is about.

            This is what we get when nobody wants to pay for news anymore. The fact that news media had to turn to ad-funded models is the fault of everybody who refuses to pay for their news

            • deleted@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              The main issue here isn’t ads. The issue is straight up false titles.

              I understand if they opted for vague summary. But false statement is where i draw the line.

              • hydroptic@sopuli.xyz
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                7 months ago

                And the reason why they have to resort to clickbait titles is to get people on their site for ad views

                • deleted@lemmy.world
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                  7 months ago

                  Clickbait and false statements are two different things.

                  If I write a title saying “Joe Biden resigned” and then talk about how most Americans wants Joe to resign this is considered a false statement.

                  But if I write “Americans wants only one thing” then this is a clickbait.

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        It takes 45 hours and that’s a good question.

        Perhaps there are multiple distinct channels with one for command responses and another for scientific data?

  • cmbabul@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    It’s gonna be a real pain in the ass to get a tech out there and look at it

  • Ænima@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    I don’t blame it for cutting off earth. This place is toxic and self destructive.

  • Jramskov@feddit.dk
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    7 months ago

    https://blogs.nasa.gov/sunspot/2023/12/12/engineers-working-to-resolve-issue-with-voyager-1-computer/

    Engineers are working to resolve an issue with one of Voyager 1’s three onboard computers, called the flight data system (FDS). The spacecraft is receiving and executing commands sent from Earth; however, the FDS is not communicating properly with one of the probe’s subsystems, called the telemetry modulation unit (TMU). As a result, no science or engineering data is being sent back to Earth.

    • sparky1337
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      7 months ago

      Forced update, they took too long to restart.

    • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      I hope they can say that about me one day

      “He was basically built to live 75 years. Fortunately for us, and for science, he’s still sending back signals these 4,000 years later”

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        Nope! Not me. I’m kinda hoping to undershoot the median age. My warranty’s expired and I really don’t know if I’m up for the “maybe we can find parts at the You-Pick” stage of existence.

    • Vincent@kbin.social
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      7 months ago

      They actually did:

      The Voyager team sent commands over the weekend for the spacecraft to restart the flight data system, but no usable data has come back yet, according to NASA.

      Unfortunately, that didn’t help. So now they’ll have to find out what’s causing this, and then see if they can fix it.

  • sneezymrmilo@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Bit of a misleading title. The voyager can still receive commands and send data to earth, the problem is that instead of useful data it just keeps sending repeating code of no use. Not a huge fan of these sensationalized and just blatantly wrong news article titles.

  • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    When the new intern presses shut down instead of disconnect while connected to the production server