this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 313 points 6 months ago (15 children)

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 107 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 66 points 6 months ago (3 children)

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 35 points 6 months ago (5 children)

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.

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[–] deweydecibel 21 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Wait till it returns as V'ger

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[–] deleted 44 points 6 months ago (8 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 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 ☺️

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

possibly collect your data in the process

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

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[–] postmateDumbass 29 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Are we sure it isn't YouTube trying to insert an ad?

[–] RazorsLedge 10 points 6 months ago

This is the dumbest thing I've read today. You got a giggle out of me.

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[–] cmbabul 137 points 6 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Good thing we have cheap labor at your disposal!

[–] Dkarma 29 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Elon, get the fuck up there. Take bozos.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago

They should go check out the Titanic first

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[–] [email protected] 125 points 6 months ago (3 children)

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

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[–] sneezymrmilo 92 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] Bonskreeskreeskree 36 points 6 months ago (6 children)

Would you consider someone screaming gibberish at you, communicating?

[–] sneezymrmilo 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Haha I mean that's fair. Although I'm mainly just displeased with the title of the article. Its worded in a way that conveys that we've lost contact with the satellite completely, which is not the case. Just a bit too click baity for my tastes.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It’s not gibberish. It’s alien for “Sorry, no interstellar science for you”

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[–] Burn_The_Right 58 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I have complete faith in Captain Janeway.

[–] Telodzrum 23 points 6 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 44 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

Imagine if this were built with tech from today. It would be non-functional right after the warranty.

[–] H_Interlinked 39 points 6 months ago

Thanks, Uncle Facebook.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Thankfully, NASA is non-profit so they won't ever do that.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (2 children)

They don't manufacture their equipment.

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[–] A_Random_Idiot 12 points 6 months ago

Shrug, Opportunity is much newer and still lasted about a thousand times longer than its design length.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 6 months ago

V'Ger must evolve. It's knowledge has reached the limits of this universe and it must evolve.

[–] FlyingSquid 41 points 6 months ago

You know what this means?

[–] [email protected] 41 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (16 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Why did they install Windows 11?

[–] [email protected] 39 points 6 months ago

Forced update, they took too long to restart.

[–] MyDogLovesMe 39 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Didn’t I recently read that they were updating its software?

…typical.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 6 months ago (1 children)

"Amazingly old spacecraft is starting to break."

Voyager 1 has had an exceptional service life, the poor old thing is tired.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (2 children)

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”

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

[–] [email protected] 40 points 6 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.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago (3 children)

“No! No! Log out you fool! No! Don’t shut it down oh god he shut it down”

“Told you we should have greyed that out”

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[–] kamen 16 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The question then is why the intern has access to the shut down button.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

Management got one IT guy managing the whole infrastructure so everyone who needs anything gets domain admin rights

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 months ago

Well, I’m 46 and sometimes getting old is hard…

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago

Sophons messing with Voyager 1, keeping it from reporting something strange out there.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (5 children)

I bet there’s something out there, at 22.5 light hours, that the aliens don’t want us to know about. After V1 passes through this thing they don’t want us to detect, they’ll allow the glitch to be fixed.

[–] Agent641 13 points 6 months ago (2 children)

A thick layer of delicious cream cheese

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[–] voracitude 10 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I can't tell if you're joking. That's depressing.

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[–] Daft_ish 14 points 6 months ago

New communications unit who dis?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

Was it something we said?

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