Read a few of the stories about #Voyager 1’s memory problems, but people don’t say how it was organized.
If the failed chip contained whole words, then just that chunk of memory would fail. If it contained one bit of many words, all those words would be affected.
That suggests a design rule for long running spacecraft - use whole word memory devices so a failure doesn’t knock out even more memory. Same for chip design, put related bits nearby on the chip. Wonder if they have this rule…
Yay! Thanks, more than 50 years old engineers that thought of almost anything for a mission that was not supposed to last this long… and thanks to the current engineers that are carrying the torch!
I bet that was tricky. It’s over 15 billion miles away, 24 billion kilometers. 136.3 AU. Almost nineteen light-hours away. That’s pretty far.
The probe is 47 years old. Younger than me! If I’d gotten my shit together, I could be at least 140 AU out from the sun by now. Well, I didn’t. Another opportunity passed me by. #Voyager#VoyagerI
Today, April 22, is Ancestor’s Eve, an evening of reflection in honor of those who came before. The holiday was established by Neelix in 2375 and celebrated on board USS Voyager, NCC-74656 (Star Trek: Voyager, s05e23 “11:59”, 1995)
As someone who was barely 4 years old when #VOY went off the air, I would like at least one (1) #StarTrek series to make it to 7 seasons at least once in my waking memory...
:thinkerguns: NASA knows what knocked Voyager 1 offline, but it will take a while to fix | @arstechnica
「 The faulty memory bank is located in Voyager 1's Flight Data System (FDS), one of three computers on the spacecraft. The FDS operates alongside a command-and-control central computer and another device overseeing attitude control and pointing 」
Feeling guilty about using my #ZSA#Voyager keyboard more than my #Moonlander on some days while I can't even type my account password on the macOS login screen with it.
The venerable Voyager 1 spacecraft is experiencing another glitch. Instead of sending science and engg. data, it is sending a 0101 bit pattern.
The problem has been narrowed down to the flight data system (FDS), which is not communicating properly with the telecom unit (TMU). A reboot did not help.
Stay tuned as NASA engrs work out a fix for this 1970's era computer, which has performed magnificently during its long 46-year journey to the planets and to outer space. https://blogs.nasa.gov/sunspot/
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