Glenn FleishmanApr 30, 2023

Missed the exciting news that the boffins at NASA JPL have figured out a way to use reserve power to keep using all the scientific instruments on board Voyager 2 for even longer. For a mission that only had a requirement to last until about 1982, job well done. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-voyager-will-do-more-science-with-new-power-strategy

Several years ago, I wrote extensively about space probes, including *six* articles about or involving the Voyager probes! https://glog.glennf.com/blog/2017/8/4/if-you-love-voyager-like-i-love-voyager

NASA’s Voyager Will Do More Science With New Power Strategy

The plan will keep Voyager 2’s science instruments turned on a few years longer than previously anticipated, enabling yet more revelations from interstellar space.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
Show threadGlenn FleishmanApr 30, 2023
The Voyager mission was full of incredibly clever ways to extend the probes’ lives:
* Using backup computers for image compression for Neptune & Uranus (Voyager 2)
* Including highly efficient error-correction encoding hardware onboard that took *years* to develop the decoder for (improving data rate efficiency)
* Making use of an expanded deep space network (DSN)
* Incredibly careful energy budgeting that has added probably a decade to the probes’ lives
Show threadRobertoApr 30, 2023

@glennf wow. I somehow knew of each separately, but had never seen all together. Thanks for posting.

Any suggested book/source on Pioneer and Voyager engineering "after launch"? A millisecond search didn't reveal any clear reference.

Show threadRoberto
@glennf sorry, an additional millisecond resulted on this reco The Interstellar Age: Inside the Forty-Year Voyager Mission. by Jim Bell https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22571516
Goodreads

Discover and share books you love on Goodreads.

Goodreads
Apr 30, 2023 at 6:13pmWeb