Incredible - Voyager 1 Probe

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

 

[Stargazer65]

In 2017, the Voyager team successfully fired the spacecraft's trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) thrusters for the first time since 1980, enabling the mission to be extended by two to three years.[12] Voyager 1's extended mission is expected to continue to return scientific data until at least 2025, with a maximum lifespan of until 2030.[13] Its radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) may supply enough electric power to return engineering data until 2036.[14]

It's amazing that there is still some operation and communication, the technology is from the 1970s, back when digital wristwatches were cutting edge high tech.

 

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

It's amazing that there is still some operation and communication, the technology is from the 1970s, back when digital wristwatches were cutting edge high tech.

I seem to remember reading that the Lunar Module we took to the moon had the same processing power as a modern 3D calculator.

 

[Stargazer65]

It takes hours for the radio signals to go back and forth, it's in the freezing cold, it's an almost 50 year old piece of equipment. When they send a signal out to Voyager 1 to do something, and then get a reply back, that's incredible. It's like...if you parked a 50 year old car in Antarctica, left it sit, then remote started it from your house, and it actually starts up.

Then the fact they were able to do maintenance on it remotely from billions of miles away:

• Voyager 1 stopped sending readable data in November 2023, but mission controllers could still communicate with the spacecraft.
• The issue was traced to the spacecraft's flight data subsystem (FDS), which packages science and engineering data for transmission to Earth.
• Engineers broke the code stored in the FDS into smaller segments and redistributed them across multiple memory locations.
• They also updated references to the code's location in the FDS memory.
  
• On April 20, 2024, Voyager 1 sent back intelligible data from two of its four science instruments.
• By June 13, 2024, all four instruments were back up and running.

 

[PollyannaMom]

The product of a hopeful time! I love that it's still out there doing its thing

 

[leebee]

The product of a hopeful time! I love that it's still out there doing its thing

It was, wasn't it?