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NASA

NASA Transmits Patches to the Two Voyager Probes Launched in 1977 (nasa.gov) 74

Posted by EditorDavid from the 12-billion-miles-from-home dept.
"It's not every day that you get to update the firmware on a device that was produced in the 1970s," writes Hackaday, "and rarely is said device well beyond the boundaries of our solar system.

"This is however exactly what the JPL team in charge of the Voyager 1 & 2 missions are facing, as they are in the process of sending fresh firmware patches over to these amazing feats of engineering."

From NASA's announcement: One effort addresses fuel residue that seems to be accumulating inside narrow tubes in some of the thrusters on the spacecraft. The thrusters are used to keep each spacecraft's antenna pointed at Earth. This type of buildup has been observed in a handful of other spacecraft... In some of the propellant inlet tubes, the buildup is becoming significant. To slow that buildup, the mission has begun letting the two spacecraft rotate slightly farther in each direction [almost 1 degree] before firing the thrusters. This will reduce the frequency of thruster firings... While more rotating by the spacecraft could mean bits of science data are occasionally lost — akin to being on a phone call where the person on the other end cuts out occasionally — the team concluded the plan will enable the Voyagers to return more data over time.

Engineers can't know for sure when the thruster propellant inlet tubes will become completely clogged, but they expect that with these precautions, that won't happen for at least five more years, possibly much longer. "This far into the mission, the engineering team is being faced with a lot of challenges for which we just don't have a playbook," said Linda Spilker, project scientist for the mission as NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "But they continue to come up with creative solutions."
But that's not the only issue: The team is also uploading a software patch to prevent the recurrence of a glitch that arose on Voyager 1 last year. Engineers resolved the glitch, and the patch is intended to prevent the issue from occurring again in Voyager 1 or arising in its twin, Voyager 2...

In 2022, the onboard computer that orients the Voyager 1 spacecraft with Earth began to send back garbled status reports, despite otherwise continuing to operate normally... The attitude articulation and control system (AACS) was misdirecting commands, writing them into the computer memory instead of carrying them out. One of those missed commands wound up garbling the AACS status report before it could reach engineers on the ground.

The team determined the AACS had entered into an incorrect mode; however, they couldn't determine the cause and thus aren't sure if the issue could arise again. The software patch should prevent that.

"This patch is like an insurance policy that will protect us in the future and help us keep these probes going as long as possible," said JPL's Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager. "These are the only spacecraft to ever operate in interstellar space, so the data they're sending back is uniquely valuable to our understanding of our local universe."
Since their launch in 1977, NASA's two Voyager probes have travelled more than 12 billion miles (each!), and are still sending back data from beyond our solar system.
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NASA Transmits Patches to the Two Voyager Probes Launched in 1977 More

NASA Transmits Patches to the Two Voyager Probes Launched in 1977

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  • Multi-generational space missions are now a thing. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Sunday October 22, 2023 @09:42PM (#63944491)
    We owe the Voyagers credit for bringing this novelty to humankind. There's probably a ton of things that have been learned in the process: Teaching younger people how to work with technology they've only seen in museums, casting their minds back in time to understand it while thinking ahead to keep it working.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      The 2 Voyagers are possibly the best science money ever spent. They visited all the gas giants with clarity never seen before, and sniffed interstellar space where no probe has gone before.

      • Yes indeed. Humanity's view of the solar system's other planets went from blurry watercolors to razor-sharp portraits. I wasn't around to see that, but I can imagine the awe.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          > I wasn't around to see that, but I can imagine the awe.

          I was. I walked into a convenience store one day and saw a magazine cover with a surreal swirling paisley portrait of Jupiter and its big four moons, full of variety, and was thinking, this can't real! Wow, WTF! I forgot what I came to buy.

          Io was pizza-esque, Europa a cracked snow-ball, Ganymede a shattered glass marble, and Calisto an ocean of small pearls.

          • The truth is sometimes more beautiful than we can imagine before seeing it. My mind imploded with awe when Cassini started delivering.

  • Continuity over 50+ years... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by silentbozo ( 542534 ) on Sunday October 22, 2023 @09:51PM (#63944497) Journal

    I am amazed that there has been a continuity of funding and knowledge transfer to allow this equipment and these programs to continue functioning.

    It's not just handling the spacecraft, but also coordinating and maintaining access to the tracking stations (Deep Space Network) necessary to send/receive information.

    https://www.nasa.gov/centers-a... [nasa.gov]

    Even if you were an intern when the spacecraft launched, you'd be well into retirement age now (1977-2023), nevermind the engineers and scientists who were deep into their careers to design and build the spacecraft prior to the actual launch date.

    Here's hoping we're able to keep these systems online for at another 5 years. Apparently the RTGs used as thermal batteries are already at their limit. The current hack to get as much voltage as possible looks like they can extend the mission to 2026 for Voyager 2...

    https://www.npr.org/2023/04/30... [npr.org]

    Current estimate is that they'll both be operationally exhausted by 2030:

    https://www.amnh.org/explore/n... [amnh.org]

    At that point, these spacecraft will have been in continuous program operation for 53 years.

  • When that equipment left Earth I was programming CDC 6000/7000 and Univac 1108 computers with jobs submitted on Hollerith card decks. You interacted with a computer more often than not via an ASR 33 teletype or if you were well funded a Hazeltine 2000 CRT.

    All that stuff is long gone. Not even findable in junk yards anymore.

    Yet those probes are still there. It is astounding that we can even maintain radio contact. Does anyone know what the specs for that RF link is? It can't be consuming more than

  • There's a joke somewhere... (Score:3)

    by magusxxx ( 751600 ) <magusxxx_2000.yahoo@com> on Monday October 23, 2023 @12:29AM (#63944607)

    ...about "right to repair" but I haven't found it yet. ;D

  • Cool NASA probe map app (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Monday October 23, 2023 @03:24AM (#63944705) Journal

    Here's a cool NASA app [nasa.gov] that lets you view the solar system from the perspective of outer probes. Click on the probe and drag your mouse to change your angle of view. (Scroll down about 2 pages if you don't see the app.)

    And you can click on the other probes' and landmarks' tags to shift your perspective to them. Other probes include New Horizons, Pioneer 10 & 11 (defunct).

  • Every time I read a story about these probes, I'm more and more astonished they still function, especially at that distance, and that we can still target them to issue commands, which they actually obey.

    Those old timey NASA engineers were absolute gods!!

  • They should just rewrite everything in Rust.

  • As someone who has to work with and audit ancient mainframe code from time to time, I can imagine what their biggest problem might be.

    With most other systems, when you encounter something in a piece of code that needs explanation, you ask "is that guy who wrote that still in the company?". With mainframe (and I can only assume Voyager) code, the question is more likely "is the guy who wrote that still alive?"

    Fortunately, back then documentation was actually a thing.

    A lot of the code I encounter is older tha

  • Documentary on the NASA folks that are keeping the Voyager 1 & 2 alive:

    Movie link: It's Quieter in the Twilight (2022) - IMDB [imdb.com]

    It is shot before and during COVID. This puts it around the upgrade of one of the primary dishes used to communicate with them in Australia.

    Keep your eye out for all of the "retro" tech gear they have to keep running. Perfect movie for all you astro geeks out there :)

  • There's hope (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Monday October 23, 2023 @09:33AM (#63945319)

    Maybe some day my Motorola smartphone will get an update too: it's still in the Solar system and it has more bandwidth than the Voyager probes.

    Sadly, Motorola is in charge of updates, not JPL. So it's not super likely.

  • I think they are taking a huge risk here. It's not like to can put the Voyager 1 & 2 in bootloader mode and align the antenna for communications with if the firmware update fails. If the update fails Voyager 1 & 2 are dead.

  • Anyone knows how many times those 2 probes have been updated with new code since they were launched?

    And is it common to update probes after they have launched?

    Just curious.

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