<![CDATA[In April, NASA turned off one of the few remaining functional instruments.]]>In April, NASA turned off one of the few remaining functional instruments. They have been slowly disabling them since 1998, because of limited power/use at various ranges.

Think about that for a moment…

It launched almost 50 years ago, in 1977. And we are STILL able to communicate with it. Expectedly until 2036. And this with our technology knowledge at the time.

Unless it collides with something or is retrieved, it will reach the Oort Cloud in about 300 years. It will take about 30k years to pass through it.

All of this blows my mind.

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/topic/1e00eb37-b416-44e5-88f5-12d8924ac4e0/in-april-nasa-turned-off-one-of-the-few-remaining-functional-instruments.RSS for NodeThu, 27 Aug 2026 06:50:15 GMTFri, 31 Jul 2026 19:24:50 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to In April, NASA turned off one of the few remaining functional instruments. on Fri, 31 Jul 2026 20:17:45 GMT]]>@markwyner If it collides with something, that something wil most likely be an Oort Cloud object.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://toot.cat/users/riley/statuses/117016432856580660https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://toot.cat/users/riley/statuses/117016432856580660Fri, 31 Jul 2026 20:17:45 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to In April, NASA turned off one of the few remaining functional instruments. on Fri, 31 Jul 2026 20:03:34 GMT]]>@markwyner IIRC this fun fact from my fault-tolerant systems course, they built in a Reed–Solomon error-correction code encoder for a robust connection... the fun being at that time no decoder existed, assuming that in a few years when Voyager would be far enough to really need the error correction a decoder would have been developed. And the gamble paid off.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodonczech.cz/ap/users/116789568520932640/statuses/117016377062891526https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodonczech.cz/ap/users/116789568520932640/statuses/117016377062891526Fri, 31 Jul 2026 20:03:34 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to In April, NASA turned off one of the few remaining functional instruments. on Fri, 31 Jul 2026 19:53:52 GMT]]>@markwyner permacomputing

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://hachyderm.io/users/c0dec0dec0de/statuses/117016338925123904https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://hachyderm.io/users/c0dec0dec0de/statuses/117016338925123904Fri, 31 Jul 2026 19:53:52 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to In April, NASA turned off one of the few remaining functional instruments. on Fri, 31 Jul 2026 19:29:17 GMT]]>@markwyner
Yeah it really shows that if humans don't rush a thing and put a lot of work into something it can be much more than we before thought it could be.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.wolkenheim.eu/users/Wolkensteine/statuses/117016242234640909https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.wolkenheim.eu/users/Wolkensteine/statuses/117016242234640909Fri, 31 Jul 2026 19:29:17 GMT