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Problem Detected with Voyager 2 Spacecraft at Edge of Solar System
Space.com ^ | 5/6/2010 | Tariq Malik

Posted on 05/08/2010 6:33:55 AM PDT by Dallas59



NASA has commanded the famed Voyager 2 probe to send only information on its health and status after spotting a puzzling change in the spacecraft's pattern of communication from the edge of the solar system.




The 33-year-old Voyager 2 spacecraft, which is currently 8.6 billion miles (13.8 billion km) from Earth, is apparently still in good health, according to the latest engineering data received on May 1. But Voyager 2's flight data system, which formats information before beaming it back to Earth, has experienced a hiccup that altered the pattern in which it sends updates home.

Because of that pattern change, mission managers can no longer decode the science data beamed to Earth from Voyager 2. The space probe and its twin Voyager 1 are flying through the bubble-like heliosphere, created by the sun, which surrounds our solar system.

The first hint of a problem came on April 22, when engineers first spotted the data pattern change. Since then, they've been working to fix the glitch and began sending commands back to Voyager 2 on April 30.

Because Voyager 2 is so far from Earth, it takes 13 hours for a message to reach the spacecraft and another 13 hours for responses to come back to NASA's Deep Space Network of listening antennas around the world.
"Voyager 2's initial mission was a four-year journey to Saturn, but it is still returning data 33 years later," said Voyager project scientist Ed Stone of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "It has already given us remarkable views of Uranus and Neptune, planets we had never seen close-up before. We will know soon what it will take for it to continue its epic journey of discovery."

Voyager 2 took a so-called "grand tour" of the solar system when it visited the gas giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in the 1980s by taking advantage of a rare planetary alignment that occurs once every 176 years.
The two space probes were built primarily to study Jupiter and Saturn, but Voyager 2 also swing by Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989 during its extended mission.
NASA launched Voyager 2 on Aug. 20,1977, just two weeks before Voyager 1. Together, the two spacecraft are the most distant human-built objects in space. Voyager 1 is about 10.5 billion miles (16.9 billion km) away from Earth and in perfect health, mission managers said.


TOPICS: History; Science
KEYWORDS: pioneeranomaly; spacecraft; voyager2
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To: mad_as_he$$

“25 years old NASA. NASA now cannot hardly launch a kids rocket....”

And The United States cannot build a FENCE!!


41 posted on 05/08/2010 9:38:11 AM PDT by Don@VB (Power Corrupts)
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To: Don@VB
We are screwed.......BTW if given the chance I could build 10 miles of fence a day for the first six month and then 30 a day for the next six - ultimately doing 100 miles a day until it was done. The major problem is the ramp up for materials.
42 posted on 05/08/2010 10:39:49 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$ (If you can read this you are the resistance.)
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To: Don@VB
We are screwed.......BTW if given the chance I could build 10 miles of fence a day for the first six month and then 30 a day for the next six - ultimately doing 100 miles a day until it was done. The major problem is the ramp up for materials.
43 posted on 05/08/2010 10:39:49 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$ (If you can read this you are the resistance.)
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To: Dallas59
When NASA does good it beats all odds....

The big question is 'can the politically correct NASA of today match the capabilities of the NASA of 30 years ago?'.

44 posted on 05/08/2010 10:55:18 AM PDT by meyer
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To: Chode
not bad for something prolly running what, a 8088 or 286 wi 64k or 128K ram???

The 8086 hit the market in the summer of 1978. The 8088 in 1978. The computer used by NASA at this time was earlier than these processors. Probably a big mainframe like the Sigma 5 that we used to operate the electric power system in Cleveland, Ohio, up until around 1993 or so.

45 posted on 05/08/2010 11:13:57 AM PDT by meyer
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To: meyer
the processor onboard Voyager?
46 posted on 05/08/2010 12:02:56 PM PDT by Chode (American Hedonist *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
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To: Chode

Oh - slapping self on head - I don’t think it’s a mainframe. :-)

But the Voyager does predate the 8086/8088 a bit. I suspect something a generation or two newer. With carefully-written programming, there’s a lot that can be done with a less powerful processor.


47 posted on 05/08/2010 12:11:46 PM PDT by meyer
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To: meyer
"I suspect something a generation or two newer."

OOps - I mean a generation or two older!

48 posted on 05/08/2010 12:16:30 PM PDT by meyer
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To: meyer
amazing how much can be done with so little...
49 posted on 05/08/2010 12:31:37 PM PDT by Chode (American Hedonist *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
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To: tlb
Because Voyager 2 is so far from Earth, it takes 13 hours for a message

As a message travel at the speed of light it a "Light 13 hours" out...

50 posted on 05/08/2010 12:33:04 PM PDT by tophat9000 (It ain't about Black... It ain't about White...It's about a Red...Trying to take our rights!)
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To: Doe Eyes

I assume that most of you have heard the inside story on what REALLY brought down Challenger?

I had a friend at United Technologies at KSC. One of the SRBs (Solid Rocket Boosters) had a hard landing at sea. Morton Thiokol, unawares, refurbished the sections of that SRB and shipped them back to KSC.

The SRB segments are bolted together at KSC. The fasteners are one inch bolts on four inch centers. When they tried to bolt up the damaged SRB sections, the holes would not line up because the casing was slightly elliptical. Some Lockheed engineer had the bright idea of plugging the bolt holes and DRILLING NEW HOLES IN BETWEEN THE HOLES ON THE FOUR INCH CENTERS. The Lockheed guy’s NASA boss got a $10K bonus for saving the SRB segment.

So they removed 33% of the steel between the plugged holes and DID NOT perform a structural analysis on the weakened joint.

Upon ignition the weakened joint ripped open like a perforated sheet of paper. You can see the puff of smoke and later the flame coming out on the famous video.

My friend, a rather quiet fellow, assumed that the investigating commission would see the problem on the drawings. When he heard in the first press conference about the O rings being the culprit, he went to the Commission. They told him they could not embarrass all of the eminent engineers and scientists by changing their findings from the O rings. Of course, they did not want to admit that NASA had done something so bone-headed as to change the SRB without analyzing the potential problem with the extra holes.

So...the guilty party kept his bonus, the innocent at Thiokol were punished, and the Agency kept it’s reputation.

The lesson here is NEVER trust official accounts, Aviation Week, or politicians.


51 posted on 05/08/2010 3:06:23 PM PDT by darth (c)
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To: Cvengr

Oh, nooooo!!!!!! A GPS IIF satellite is being attacked by aliens and missiles!


52 posted on 05/08/2010 3:11:06 PM PDT by r9etb
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To: Dallas59; All

Do any of you with more understanding of the problem think that NASA can correct this ‘glitch’ and get Voyager to go back to sending it’s data home correctly?


53 posted on 05/08/2010 3:16:45 PM PDT by airborne ("It's a great day for hockey!" - 'Badger' Bob Johnson (RIP))
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To: Freds2nd
My 1972 Wheelhorse lawn tractor still runs. They don’t make them like they used to.

I have a 1973 Kenmore dryer that still works. In fact, I spray-painted it several years ago. Avocado died long before the dryer. LOL

54 posted on 05/08/2010 3:23:50 PM PDT by mombonn (God is looking for spiritual fruit, not religious nuts.)
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To: darth
The lesson here is NEVER trust official accounts, Aviation Week, or politicians.

Of course, instead believe un-sourced shti published on the internet.

55 posted on 05/08/2010 3:58:47 PM PDT by Doe Eyes
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To: Doe Eyes

I was there. I was a Shuttle engineer for 14 years.

You want a source? Go look at the drawings, but I’ll bet those got deep sixed.

Do you believe what you read in Aviation Week? I was in a meeting where my company (not North American) used to PLANT propaganda stories in it by paying off reporters to push our stuff. Do you trust the MSM?

If people had not talked, do you think that North American’s warnings to NASA before the Apollo fire would seen the light of day? NASA got away with blaming North American and they retired Harrison Storms, but eventually the truth came out that North American told NASA NOT to run a test at 17 PSI pure O2 with velcro all over the inside of the capsule.

Believe what you like. Every time I have been close to a major story, the press ALWAYS got it wrong. Journalists are lazy and normally believe what the guvmint tells them.

I worked on NASA projects for almost 20 years, and I have a high regard for the dedicated engineers who gave their all to our space program. However, every time there was a major foul up (Apollo fire, Challenger, Columbia) there was at least a partial cover up.


56 posted on 05/08/2010 4:38:25 PM PDT by darth (c)
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To: darth
Why did the Thiokol Engineers on site refused to sign off on the launch? Instead, launch approval was fax’ed in from Thiokol in Utah.
57 posted on 05/08/2010 5:23:47 PM PDT by Doe Eyes
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To: Doe Eyes

Good question. Pressure was applied by NASA to launch on schedule because they anticipated good PR from the school teacher on board.

Rocco Petrone, Rockwell’s Shuttle Division President, to his credit, advised against launching with 6 foot icicles hanging off the bird. Rockwell did not know about the SRB mods. They were concerned about having hundreds of pounds of ice striking the bird at near Mach 1.

Rockwell was pressured to OK the launch.

I was at a tech conference when they told us of the loss of Challenger. I turned to the guy next to me and said, “I’ll bet $100 it was an SRB burn-through”.

Do you know why the SRBs were designed to be in sections? Fletcher was the NASA Administrator when the Shuttle was designed. He was a Mormon from Utah and wanted to insure that the SRB refurb would be performed in Utah by Thiokol. They had to make the SRB in segments because the entire SRB could not fit through the railway tunnels. Thiokol and Hercules were in Utah because you could find factory workers who would not sneak a smoke around the rocket fuel (lots of Mormons available).

The SRB in sections was known to be high risk from the beginning of the program, but it was a political call to get jobs in Utah.


58 posted on 05/08/2010 6:11:02 PM PDT by darth (c)
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To: Doe Eyes

BTW, I was part of the team evaluating program risks and fixes AFTER Challenger. There were a number of line entries that said, “Risk of total loss of vehicle. Fix too expensive. No funding in budget. Risk categorized, probablity established. Risk accepted”.


59 posted on 05/08/2010 6:15:40 PM PDT by darth (c)
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To: darth
You talk a good story, and I really want to believe you. Is there anything on the Internet that backs you up?
60 posted on 05/08/2010 6:25:16 PM PDT by Doe Eyes
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