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Space

When Voyager 2 Calls Home, Earth Soon Won't Be Able to Answer (nytimes.com) 80

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Voyager 2 has been traveling through space for 43 years, and is now more than 11 billion miles from Earth. But every so often, something goes wrong. From a report: At the end of January, for instance, the robotic probe executed a routine somersault to beam scientific data back to Earth when an error triggered a shutdown of some of its functions. "Everybody was extremely worried about recovering the spacecraft," said Suzanne Dodd, who is the Voyager project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The mission's managers on our planet know what to do when such a fault occurs. Although it takes about a day and a half to talk to Voyager 2 at its current distance, they sent commands to restore its normal operations.

But starting on Monday for the next 11 months, they won't be able to get word to the spry spacecraft in case something again goes wrong (although the probe can still stream data back to Earth). Upgrades and repairs are prompting NASA to take offline a key piece of space age equipment used to beam messages all around the solar system. The downtime is necessary because of a flood of new missions to Mars scheduled to leave Earth this summer. But the temporary shutdown also highlights that the Deep Space Network, essential infrastructure relied upon by NASA and other space agencies, is aging and in need of expensive upgrades.
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When Voyager 2 Calls Home, Earth Soon Won't Be Able to Answer More

When Voyager 2 Calls Home, Earth Soon Won't Be Able to Answer

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  • He will solve the problem, if he knew about it.

    • He will solve the problem, if he knew about it.

      He had better, because the Mars missions referred to in the article are already enroute. The Deep Space Network changes cannot be delayed.

    • We can root for Starship to become viable in the next decade and then NASA can exit the launch market altogether and focus on things like DSN and interplanetary probes more, the real science NASA seems to really excel at. Developing the "dumb pipe" aspect of it has borne out to be a waste of their talent ever since Apollo. I want to see a fleet of new Voyagers/Cassini style spacecraft, no reason we shouldn't have plans for orbiters around every planet at some point. With us learning more and more about t

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Musk should make a mesh network for Tesla's. Add a solar panel, and then just keep launching them randomly into space like that other one he did. Problem solved.

  • Dumb question time (Score:4, Interesting)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Friday August 21, 2020 @11:55AM (#60427053) Journal

    Obviously the folks at NASA know far more than I do, but is there a reason they couldn't keep the existing equipment running while installing/upgrading/whatever the new equipment? Or is the new equipment wholesale replacing what's in place now (i.e. they're gutting what they have and starting over)?

    • Re:Dumb question time (Score:5, Informative)

      by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Friday August 21, 2020 @12:08PM (#60427093)

      No, they cannot.

      Much of the problem is NASA cannot duplicate the equipment because it is literally huge and expensive stuff (parabolic dishes, which are on gimbles so they can be pointed to any part of the sky). These things are massive.

      The updates being performed require that the equipment be locked in one place for days while the huge mechanical pieces involved are moved, maintained, repaired, replaced, and improved. Just the shear size of these things makes it a difficult, and time consuming series of tasks. Once you start this, you are committed to doing the whole series of tasks and the antennas are down, out of operation, for the duration.

      IMHO, I think we should spend the few billion that it will take to make this system fully redundant, meaning we will need to build at least 2 more ground stations, possibly three to the upgraded standards, then refurbish the existing infrastructure. But we have waited way too long now, and we really need to do this maintenance/upgrade cycle now.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Moryath ( 553296 )
        This is what happens when "deferred maintenance" comes due. NASA has been suffering ever since Bush the Elder under budget cuts; every time republicans take over the US legislative branch, the budget cuts come faster. The cuts massively accelerated under Shrub the Dumber with diversions to more and more silly and useless military projects (redirected to stuff like Tanks The Army Didn't Even Want That Go Straight Into Storage Never To Be Used [military.com]).

        They saw a BRIEF uptick in the first couple budgets of the Oba

        • Re:Dumb question time (Score:5, Insightful)

          by The Grim Reefer ( 1162755 ) on Friday August 21, 2020 @03:17PM (#60427737)

          NASA has been suffering ever since Bush the Elder under budget cuts; every time republicans take over the US legislative branch, the budget cuts come faster.

          Actually both parties have been cutting/increasing NASA's budget over the years. It also depends on how you want to quantify it. Just total dollars? dollars adjusted for inflation, or percent of total government spending. But you are so wrong with regards to Bush the elder. NASA saw one of it's largest increases in it's budget since the start of the space race. GWB and Obama as a percentage of government spending were the beginning of the lowest budgets since the beginning of the space program.

          Total dollars spent actually went down through out Nixon's administration. However that was in large part due to the Apollo missions winding down and the R&D being finished. But the budget increased under Ford. NASA had a budget of $4.25 billion (2.31% of total dollars spent by the US gov't) at the start of Nixon and decreased steadily to $3.3 billion (1.35%) by 1973. In 1974 under Ford the total budget was $3.25 billion and increased to $3.67 by 1976.

          Carter was probably the worst president with regards to budget cuts to NASA. Originally NASA wanted 5 space shuttles, Carter cut it to 4 with "structural spares". Fortunately those spare parts were available to built a replacement for Challenger. Granted the overall budget did go up due to R&D for the shuttle program. Under Carter NASA had a budget of $4 billion (.98%) in 1977 and the total dollar amount slowly rose to $4.9 billion (.84%) by 1980

          Reagan started out 1980 with a $5.5 billion (.84%) budget for NASA and ended 1988 with a $9.19 billion (.85%) budget.

          In 1989 George bush increased NASA's budget to $11 billion (.96%) and ended 1992 with a budget of almost $14 billion (1.01%). Though it was as high as 1.05% in 1991.

          President Clinton began his term in 1993 with a budget of $14.3 billion (1.01% of total government spending) and decreased total dollars spent to $13.4 billion. However the percent of total government spending on NASA had dropped to .75% by the year 2000. This was the lowest it had been since 1960.

          GWB started out 2001 with a NASA budget of $14 billion (.75%) and ended his second term giving NASA $17.8 billion (.6% of total spending)

          President Obama started out with the highest percentage of government spending during his tenure at .57% in 2009 with $17.8 billion. While the total dollar amount spent was up to $19.3 billion by 2016 the total percentage of government spending that went to NASA had dropped to .5% by 2016. The percentage of total spending actually dropped to .49% in 2013 and 2015. Which was the lowest it had been since 1959.

          The 2017 NASA budget under Trump was $19.5 billion (.47% of total gov't spending). The 2020 NASA budget if $22.6 billion (.48%).

          So depending on what kind of numbers game you want to play, it could be said that Trump has spent more money on NASA than any other president. Or you could say that Johnson did as NASA's budget in 1966 was 4.41% of the total budget. IF you want to go with percentages of government spending, George Bush Sr. was the only president since 1974 to spend more than 1% of the budget on NASA. Regardless, saying that Bush Sr. was hard on NASA is just plane wrong. Additionally, congress writes the budget, the president just approves it. .

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Moryath ( 553296 )
            The dishonesty level in this is hilarious. Attacking Carter claiming he was "probably the worst president with regards to budget cuts to NASA"... then admitting " the overall budget did go up due to R&D for the shuttle program" under Carter. Just hilarious.

            • The dishonesty level in this is hilarious. Attacking Carter claiming he was "probably the worst president with regards to budget cuts to NASA"... then admitting " the overall budget did go up due to R&D for the shuttle program" under Carter. Just hilarious.

              Yeah, I had an entire paragraph on that that didn't make the post due to me missing a greater than sign at the beginning of it.

              The reason NASA's budget was so high during Johnson's term was because of the Apollo program. NASA was expecting the shuttle budget to be in addition to it's other programs. Carter basically cut everything but the shuttle. That's why there was no replacement for Skylab.

              Also keep in mind that the percentage of the total government budget went from .98% at the beginning of his ter

            • That is the other question. The expensive, useless, non-science stuff.

              Shuttle is, finally dead. Space station still sucks funds. Important stuff like the Web languish.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dryeo ( 100693 )

            Maybe my problem is not being American, but isn't it Congress who sets spending?

            • Maybe my problem is not being American, but isn't it Congress who sets spending?

              Yes, that's what I stated in my last sentence. But the reality is a little more complicated than that. Typically the president submits a budget to congress and they can use that as a basis for their budget, pick can choose parts they like, or tell the president to stick it.

              The president can then look at the budget and sign it as-is or ask congress to revise certain programs. If congress is unwilling to do so, the president can also veto the budget. Of course congress has the ability to get enough votes

              • Re: (Score:3)

                by dryeo ( 100693 )

                Sorry about that, missed the last line. I guess the other problem is Congress critters wanting pork and making trade offs for that pork.

          • But starting on Monday for the next 11 months, they won't be able to get word to the spry spacecraft [...] Upgrades and repairs

            That's because they engaged IBM Services to do the upgrade for them. It started out as a 48-hour change window and after fifteen renegotiations and change orders it's gone to 11 months. Once they start it'll actually end up taking ten years, go 500% over budget, and only deliver 35% of the negotiated capacity with lawsuits dragging on for years.

      • How about putting a radio relay with a 100 meter parabolic antenna at the L4 and L5 points? That would give you redundancy and ensure you're not blocked by a planet or moon in the way.
      • These spacecraft were all originally designed for a life of 5 or 10 years. No one expected the Pioneer craft to be still operational.
        • The United States may not be a manufacturing hub anymore, but I don't think anyone has ever been able to knock our engineering capabilities.
          • 1960s was the time we respected science, and we did not tear down institutions for political gain, the best and brightest still considered govt service like NASA as career options... We were willing fund them too. It showed in the programs of that era.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
              And also: the 1960s, a time where the US wanted to beat the soviets at anything and everything no matter the cost. well the USSR is gone, and russia is not the giant bear the USSR was, so congress members have lost some of their interest in NASA, beyond using it thunnel large amounts of (hidden) pork to to the states that got them there in the first place. Oh well there is always spacex , let them handle the delivery systems, so NASA can free up manpower to design the probes and instruments

      • Just the shear size of these things makes it a difficult, and time consuming series of tasks.

        I too am afraid of huge shears.

        • Just the shear size of these things makes it a difficult, and time consuming series of tasks.

          I too am afraid of huge shears.

          It's because of the shears that they can't keep the system running.

        • Yeah, like those big ones in the Exorcist 3! They seriously creeped me out!

      • No, they cannot.

        Much of the problem is NASA cannot duplicate the equipment because it is literally huge and expensive stuff (parabolic dishes, which are on gimbles so they can be pointed to any part of the sky). These things are massive.

        They should just put it in the cloud! /ducks

      • In some cases they can't even reproduce the technology used because at least some of it has become obsolete, they'd have to re-develop it from scratch using modern technology.
        An obscure reference from me to be sure, but: it'd be like having an old Gottlieb pinball machine, one of the first electronic ones, and needing to replace the Rockwell-made integrated circuits on the control PCB; they don't exist anymore, and there's nothing off-the-shelf that'll replace them, and you can't just go get some made up f
    • NASA belongs to the United States of immigrants to America, and one thing we know about them is that they do not believe in backups to infrastructure or even regular maintenance.

  • V'ger (Score:5, Funny)

    by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Friday August 21, 2020 @11:55AM (#60427055)
    Uh, oh. This didn't turn out so well last time...

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • forget the tin can, it's those Space Whales that are scary. When they call, you'd better answer if you know what's good for you.

  • "But the temporary shutdown also highlights that the Deep Space Network, essential infrastructure relied upon by NASA and other space agencies, is aging and in need of expensive upgrades."

    A 43 year experiment that requires a large overhead. Technology will advance during this time period so upgrades and fixes will need to happen. Also for something so long running, you will need a government(s) to help keep it going. A private business isn't stable enough to handle such an endeavor. As most large compan

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      You say this like our government does not typically experience radical shifts in leadership every 8-16 years and frequently more often.

  • They have to turn off a working system, for a year, to perform upgrades?

    What kind of crappy upgrade takes the system completely offline for a year?

  • Um... (Score:3)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Friday August 21, 2020 @12:41PM (#60427221)

    ... the Deep Space Network, essential infrastructure relied upon by NASA and other space agencies, is aging and in need of expensive upgrades.

    Shouldn't something so essential be redundant? (Asking for a lonely interstellar friend.)

    • The DSN as a whole has lots of redundancy: there are 3 sites with one 70 m dish and at least 3 34-m dishes each. Upgrades can mostly be done without service interruption.
      Voyager 2 is the exception: from Earth, it's only visible from the Southern hemisphere (so only one of the DSN stations can see it), and uplink can only be done by the transmitter attached to the 70-m dish.
      Downlink is easier: this can be done by the 34-m dishes as well (or by arraying two of them). Adding a second 70-m dish for a single mis

  • This is how we got V'Ger (Star Trek: Motion Pic) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Baby Yoda's Daddy ( 6413160 ) on Friday August 21, 2020 @12:57PM (#60427271)
    "Please standby for the next available technician."

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Hahaha cdwriter! You are so funny! I am ROFL and I have room to do many rolls where I live! I hear that you only have room to do one third of a roll where you live, it is true?

  • Voyager 2 hasn't traveled by a tiny fraction of a single light year, which is equal to 5.88 trillion miles.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Voyager 2 hasn't traveled by a tiny fraction of a single light year, which is equal to 5.88 trillion miles.

      I disagree. Voyager 2 has traveled a tiny fraction of a single light year. I would say the fraction would be about 1/545th of a light year.

  • They literally have 43 years of investment in voyager. It seems like they should have spent the money on a new system instead of upgrading the old one. 43 years. What are the odds of another craft getting as far as voyager has without getting whacked by an object? And whatever, we will have to wait another 40+ years to get something else out that far. Oops, warp drive, right. But like all old things in the US, just throw it under the bus.
  • Kinda weird that these probes are over 40 years old and outside the solar system but we'll be the ones to stop talking first.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by k6mfw ( 1182893 )
      When I first read the headline, it seemed to suggest we'll do something stupid and extinct ourselves before the Voyagers die.
  • The article was from March. The flood of missions to Mars that will be launching this summer, have already been launched.
  • Well, according to the movie, Vger will come back to try and figure out why it lost contact, so in a couple centuries will see it again. LOL.
  • I remember watching the press briefings during 1979 Pioneer Saturn flyby, KQED dedicated eight hours of straight broadcasting from Ames Research Center. Scientists going over the images which were pretty bad but superior to what we ever saw before. They were debating various new rings seen, "we have the G ring, H ring, we are determining if there is..." (more)? In later years when Voyager flew by and pics show a bizillion rings, so much for debating the G and H rings.
  • NASA also got tired of the 30 percent cut.

    So Apple also cut off Voyager from the App Store!

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