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The diagnosis is in—bad memory knocked NASA’s aging Voyager 1 offline (arstechnica.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology

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"Engineers are optimistic they can find a way for the FDS to operate normally."

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Important points missed by the bot:

FDS is the Flight Data Subsystem:

The Flight Data Subsystem was an innovation in computing when it was developed five decades ago. It was the first computer on a spacecraft to use volatile memory. Most of NASA's missions operate with redundancy, so each Voyager spacecraft launched with two FDS computers. But the backup FDS on Voyager 1 failed in 1982.

They identified the problem:

The command worked, and Voyager.1 responded with a signal different from the code the spacecraft had been transmitting since November. After several weeks of meticulous examination of the new code, engineers pinpointed the locations of the bad memory.

They think they can work around the problem:

"Although it may take weeks or months, engineers are optimistic they can find a way for the FDS to operate normally without the unusable memory hardware, which would enable Voyager 1 to begin returning science and engineering data again," NASA said.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago

Thank you kind human

[–] rob_t_firefly 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

FDS is the Flight Data Subsystem:

Not to be confused with the Famicom Disk System, First Date Sex, or Feminine Deodorant Spray.

[–] PlutoniumAcid 1 points 7 months ago

Fuk Dat Shit