appiah4 wrote on 2020-02-05, 06:47:

brostenen wrote on 2020-02-01, 17:13:

jmarsh wrote on 2020-02-01, 13:51:

Probably bad caps.

More likely that the fuel is nearly depleted. That is why they shut down instruments, one by one through the years.

Isn't it solar powered? Electronics failing due to radioactivity is a more probable cause methinks..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MHW-RTG

The Sun's a bit dim that far out.

Thanks for the replies, folks! 😀

February 3rd, 2020: According to some Austrian news page, Voyager 2 is operating normal again.
Englisch translation available here.

Tiny update. February 14th 2020 (news):
30 years ago, Voyager 1 took a picture of „Pale Blue Dot“, earth, in a distance of 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles).

Sources:
https://earthsky.org/space/february-14- ... e-voyager
https://www.space.com/pale-blue-dot-voyager-1 … nniversary.html

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PIA23 … upd20200212.jpg
Picture by NASA/JPL, public domain

Tiny update. July 30th 2020 (news):
Actual distance between Voyager 1 and sol is now equal to 150 times the distance of sun and earth (or in short, 150 AU).
According to the source(s), that's another milestone for the Voyager sisters.

Source: https://www.heise.de/news/NASA-Sonde-Voyager- … de-4860407.html
English Translation

It's amazing how long-lived 70s era technology really is. We can only hope that its knowledge is preserved for future generations.
For comparison, the electronics of the ancient AO-07 amateur radio satellite from 1974 is still working, despite that hard radiation.
Main reason why the sateliite failed at one point in its life was that its main power source was failing:
The AO-07 had NiCD batteries had caused a short, so the whole system was inoperable.
Once the batteries became an open-circuit, the solar panels were able to bring the venerable satellite back to life.
Unfortunately, the Voyager twins rely on RTGs with Plut.-238 (PuO2), which has a lifetime of 87,7 years,
but the efficiency of 6.5% of the old RTGs and the high power consumption of the sondes both lead to a much shorter lifetime in reality.

Source:
https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecra … nstruments/rtg/
https://ukamsat.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/o … -7-in-space.jpg
https://www.amsat.org/two-way-satellites/ao-7/

Jo22 wrote on 2020-02-01, 11:53:

Klingons ?
A worm hole ?

Aczathoth?
Nyarlathotep?

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Cthulhu 2020! Why vote for the lesser evil?

Tiny update. November 3, 2020 (news). The repairs and upgrades of the 70m/230 feet large satellite dish DSS43, that's used for the uplink to Voyager 2, had been mostly completed after several months.
The final work is supposed to be completed in February 2021.
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/03/world/nasa … trnd/index.html

Quick update. Discovered a fascinating article about the Voyager's receiver system(s)..

https://hackaday.com/2020/12/31/still-working … wave-subsystem/

Quick update. Found a nicely written article about the Voyagers.

https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/voyager-1?r … =5#rebelltitem5

Quick update. February 12th 2020 (news). Communication with Voyager 2 is possible again.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/science/na … ce-network.html

I was in highschool when Voyager made its flyby of Jupiter (Voyager 1, iirc).
I entered JPL's "Why Expore the Planets?" competition... won a nice little picture of Saturn from Voyager.
I barely missed out on the opportunity to go to JPL (the winning prize). Story of my life...

Hamby wrote on 2021-02-14, 05:43:

I was in highschool when Voyager made its flyby of Jupiter (Voyager 1, iirc).
I entered JPL's "Why Expore the Planets?" competition... won a nice little picture of Saturn from Voyager.
I barely missed out on the opportunity to go to JPL (the winning prize). Story of my life...

Hey, that's awesome! 😎👍Thanks for sharing your story!
I wished I was around at that time, but alas, this was before my time.
I'm also from Europe, so a travel to JPL would tave been akin to trip around the world. *sigh*
Speaking of JPL, there used to be an event at JPL that included SSTV over amateur radio, in the early 80s, I believe.
I think it was about the Grand Tour of Voyager 2.. 😀

Links
https://jplarc.ampr.org/calling/1981/sep/sep81.html

https://jplarc.ampr.org/newsletters/1981/oct/oct81.html

https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/stories/coming-you-l … e-planet-saturn

This was in a time when Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and amateur radio (esp. VHF/UHF/Microwaves) were fresh and had a good/positive reputation, I assume.
Makes me kinda sad that I missed out on this.

Judging by the photos found, popular hardware of the time were the Yaesu radios (FT-101, FRG-7, FRG-7000 maybe too),
the Robot 400 slow-scan converter, Apple IIs and other Z80 computers, Weller Magnastat TCP24 soldering stations etc.

Edit: The SSTV archive used to be here, but the mp3s seem to be nolonger available, sadly.

Edit: Good news! It was a lot of work, but here'ssome piece of history! 😁

Edit: There apparently also was a little SSTV event for the Viking mission..
https://jplarc.ampr.org/newsletters/1976/dec/dec76.html

Edit: Just found out that the club station's call's suffix VIO (prefix W6) was meant to say "Voyager In Outer Space". Cool! 😎

Jo22 wrote on 2021-02-14, 18:12:

Hey, that's awesome! 😎👍Thanks for sharing your story! I wished I was around at that time, but alas, this was before my time. I' […]
Show full quote

Hey, that's awesome! 😎👍Thanks for sharing your story!
I wished I was around at that time, but alas, this was before my time.
I'm also from Europe, so a travel to JPL would tave been akin to trip around the world. *sigh*
Speaking of JPL, there used to be an event at JPL that included SSTV over amateur radio, in the early 80s, I believe.
I think it was about the Grand Tour of Voyager 2.. 😀

Links
https://jplarc.ampr.org/calling/1981/sep/sep81.html

https://jplarc.ampr.org/newsletters/1981/oct/oct81.html

https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/stories/coming-you-l … e-planet-saturn

This was in a time when Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and amateur radio (esp. VHF/UHF/Microwaves) were fresh and had a good/positive reputation, I assume.
Makes me kinda sad that I missed out on this.

Judging by the photos found, popular hardware of the time were the Yaesu radios (FT-101, FRG-7, FRG-7000 maybe too),
the Robot 400 slow-scan converter, Apple IIs and other Z80 computers, Weller Magnastat TCP24 soldering stations etc.

Edit: The SSTV archive used to be here, but the mp3s seem to be nolonger available, sadly.

Edit: Good news! It was a lot of work, but here'ssome piece of history! 😁

Edit: There apparently also was a little SSTV event for the Viking mission..
https://jplarc.ampr.org/newsletters/1976/dec/dec76.html

Edit: Just found out that the club station's call's suffix VIO (prefix W6) was meant to say "Voyager In Outer Space". Cool! 😎

Hey, that IS cool!

Retro Recipes YouTube channel a few weeks back had an episode where they talked to the ISS from a C64...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJVU1stPPlQ

Thanks for the link! ^^

Edit : Some more pictures added. Finally, for the SSTV topic.

Quick update. Found a recent YT video featuring Voyager 2.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sga1ZPBJ9DYd&t=200

Quick update. Found another interesting YT video - it's about the computers of Voyager.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H62hZJVqs2o

By the way, there also was an episode of "Mission Top Secret", The Return Of The Dinosaur, perhaps, in which a glowing, melody making egg was in the focus.
By the end of the episode it was assumed that that egg might be from among the stars.
If my memory serves me well, then one of the main protagonists (Sir Joshua?) said that humans did create something similar before not so long ago..
This might have been a reference to the Golden Records and the Pioneer/Voyager probes, in which humanity tried to send a friendly message to other life in the universe.
Anyway, that's just a childhood memory of mine. I was just a few years young when the series was being aired.
Most people likely wont even remember that show anymore. It's been so long ago.

Quick update. There seems to be a successor planned for the Voyagers, currently named "Interstellar Probe".
The mission is scheduled for the 2030s, with the sonde planned to leave solar system at "twice the speed".

Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pr … ion-at-a-time1/