Next hardware reset and automatic reorientation for Voyager 2 is October 15th. Yes the device automatically resets itself about four to five times a year. Communications are expected to be reestablished then.
Sounds like it's a recoverable error (if the scientists can't do it the spacecraft has an automated process that'll kick in in October.) Still, I can't imagine what that must feel like.
Wow, I just read the wiki. It has a 64 Megabyte tape storage, so after it realigns the antenna they can receive the data they've missed. Pretty state of the art for 1977. I wonder how they shielded it from radiation. The fuel source of the reactor lasts probably until 2026. After that, it'll travel as a brick, most likely long after humans rm -rf'd
This. And even then there should be procedures in place to essentially make it impossible to send the wrong inputs.
It's like when an intern accidentally drops the production database. It's not the interns fault for sending the wrong command. It's the managements fault for not restricting access in the first place.
This. This. I used to work on safety control systems for heavy industrial applications and it's this. Once the system is running any changes at all went through a whole chain of people. When the change was being implemented I had my supervisor and their manager checking every line over my shoulder before we wrote it. Then test. Then lock it down with a digital signature.
It's not at all like in college/university where you're making changes to your code over and over. Well it is in simulations but that's long before you deploy it. By the end everyone involved should be able to say exactly what every line of code is going to do. This isn't an intern fucking up, the whole team did, and whomever the buck stops with at the top is responsible.
If you're talking about Voyager, I'd assume so, but I don't have any source to back that up. If you're talking about my previous work, the test environment was exact enough... Cough not-even-close cough.
Yeah all jokes aside this is a actually pretty big loss for the scientific community. Assuming it's completely unrecoverable. We blew our chance to actually measure the conditions in interstellar space and see if it lines up with our theories, and another probe is not only not planned for the foreseeable future by any space agency, it will also take decades to get to where Voyager 2 is now.
Edit: Nevermind, see the other comment. It's likely not permanently lost!
Next hardware reset and automatic reorientation for Voyager 2 is October 15th. Yes the device automatically resets itself about four to five times a year. Communications are expected to be reestablished then.
That's great to know. This post made me weirdly depressed and was a bad way to start the morning lol.
In the meantime, they're going to shout at it.
That's good news! I was about to ask whether they have some absolute software recovery procedure and glad they do!
Almost like real engineers planned for such an event!
Someone ran 'systemctl restart networking' while SSH'd into the probe.
Unrelated but I've been wondering this for years: What's your avatar from and why do so many people across the web have that exact same one?
No idea, I found it somewhere a decade ago and have been using it. I think I’ve only seen someone with it like one other time. 🤷🏻♂️
I remember it used to be popular in gaming groups and some music around 2008-2012 and a lot of variations of the same gas mask character were made
The guy I know who uses gasmasks everywhere does it because it's a fetish.
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/02/1191341035/nasa-voyager-2-spacecraft-contact
Sounds like it's a recoverable error (if the scientists can't do it the spacecraft has an automated process that'll kick in in October.) Still, I can't imagine what that must feel like.
https://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0410/04noaanreport/
Probably a lot like the person responsible for dropping the NOAA-19 satellite.
I imagine they feel bad. Not really bad, like a loved one died, but pretty bad, like a passion they worked really hard for just fizzled out.
That's why your color your production windows red.
V2 be like: "WHAT did you say about my mother? F... you, Earth man."
Mission control: "Dude you don't have a mother it was a typo. Dude. Talk to me."
seenMission control: "Dude."
seenMission control: "C'mon man."
This message could not be sent. V2 may have blocked your numberWhen you ufw enable but forgot to whitelist port 22
There's no going into the office to fix this one...
Probably played with the firewall settings and accidentally disabled port 22... It sucked when I did that
Hello IT, have you tried turning it off and on again?
Looks like someone removed the ssh keys
sudo rm -rf --no-preserve-root /starman is not in the sudoers file.
This incident will be reported.
Oh no, Linus Torvalds is gonna call me again
Linus calling you to belittle your management of the sudoers file is the FOSS form of swatting lol.
sudo rm -rf i_want_to_delete_everything_in_this_folder /*oops...
sudo rm -rf /*Tfw you conf t and shut a management port down on accident and don't have a backup console connection
FUC-
Patching recent ssh vulnerabilities I see
You just need to reboot it manually
Just press and hold the power button smh
https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-loses-contact-voyager-2-sent-wrong-command-mistake-space-2023-8
No biggie just get someone to mount the files system and edit the ssh file 😌
iptables -P INPUT DROP
Must have been an intern.
Wow, I just read the wiki. It has a 64 Megabyte tape storage, so after it realigns the antenna they can receive the data they've missed. Pretty state of the art for 1977. I wonder how they shielded it from radiation. The fuel source of the reactor lasts probably until 2026. After that, it'll travel as a brick, most likely long after humans rm -rf'd
I bet you don't simply send random commands to the probe. There are likely a dozen of people who need to approve literally every keystroke.
This. And even then there should be procedures in place to essentially make it impossible to send the wrong inputs.
It's like when an intern accidentally drops the production database. It's not the interns fault for sending the wrong command. It's the managements fault for not restricting access in the first place.
This. This. I used to work on safety control systems for heavy industrial applications and it's this. Once the system is running any changes at all went through a whole chain of people. When the change was being implemented I had my supervisor and their manager checking every line over my shoulder before we wrote it. Then test. Then lock it down with a digital signature.
It's not at all like in college/university where you're making changes to your code over and over. Well it is in simulations but that's long before you deploy it. By the end everyone involved should be able to say exactly what every line of code is going to do. This isn't an intern fucking up, the whole team did, and whomever the buck stops with at the top is responsible.
They have like a whole test environment that is an exact duplicate right?
If you're talking about Voyager, I'd assume so, but I don't have any source to back that up. If you're talking about my previous work, the test environment was exact enough... Cough not-even-close cough.
"I'm gonna click approve without looking because the tons of people before / after me must have / will review it."
… and at this moment it is no longer my problem. I have written evidence that I forwarded my command for approval.
UP ARROW!!
Sounds like those two need to go to couples therapy.
Awww, what a shame though. This probe was doing some really cool stuff, it's kinda iconic in my head.
It should be ok. It's due to self-reset its orientation on October 15, they put measures in place for if they accidentally lost contact.
I would still be besides myself if I had made that error though.
Yeah all jokes aside this is a actually pretty big loss for the scientific community. Assuming it's completely unrecoverable. We blew our chance to actually measure the conditions in interstellar space and see if it lines up with our theories, and another probe is not only not planned for the foreseeable future by any space agency, it will also take decades to get to where Voyager 2 is now.
Edit: Nevermind, see the other comment. It's likely not permanently lost!
Also haven't we been gathering interstellar readings for a while now?