Voyager 2 Hijacked!!!(on news)

physixlover

How is this possible? is this real
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s...ms-expert.html

Borek

Credibility of Bild is so low, German scientists still work on the microscope strong enough to find it.

D H

Apparently that same microscope would be needed to find the Telegraph's credibility.


One sentence in that article is correct: "Since its launch, Voyager 2 has been sending streams of data back to Earth for study by scientists, but on April 22, 2010, that stream of information suddenly changed."

What happened was a single event upset. A cosmic ray hit the memory in just the wrong place and caused one bit to flip from one to zero or zero to one. SEUs are the bugaboo of space-based avionics.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-151

seto6

i heard something different it did not get hijacked rather it malfunctioned due to radiation by near the voyager. i read it at a different source. remember that news papers try to fantasise on simple problem. trying to sell their paper

Mu naught

Hey, just wondering but what is powering Voyager 2 after all these years? I don't think solar panels would be getting enough sunlight at the distance it is for it to still be able to send a strong enough signal to earth.

Janus

It is powered by a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator. The generator has dropped in output since launch and this has been compensated for by turning off some systems.

D H

To add to Janus response, the Voyager vehicles didn't even have solar arrays. Solar arrays just aren't much use beyond Mars. A vehicle that is operates in the vicinity of Mars would need more than twice as large a set of solar arrays compared to a similar vehicle operating near the Earth. For Jupiter, its 27 times larger. Arrays of that size aren't practical.

This includes much of the system redundancy. The vehicles are essentially flying in single string mode now. That is why a single event upset was able to have an adverse impact.

alxm

Hmm, I don't hold Bild in high esteem but the Telegraph seems much worse here, between the two reports "Alien expert Hartwig Hausdorf (54, ‘UFOs – They Are Still Flying’)" turned into "Hartwig Hausdorf, a German academic".

I don't know what the Telegraph's criteria are for labeling someone an 'academic', but according to Hausdorf's homepage, he used to have a column in Penthouse..

I'll have to talk to my uni librarian about gaining access to this scholarly journal!

Mu naught

How much longer can it run for?

B. Elliott

JPL estimates the lifetime as ending "no earlier than 2025".

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecra...craftlife.html

dgtech

I am not sure NASA will prefer the craft "hijacked" rather than just another "failed sooner than expected" :)

If aliens come and invade Earth, it would be NASA's fault for leading them here thou, after all Voyager craft contains all the necessary information on our location and weaknesses ;)

That was a joke of course, I expect a life form, advanced enough to be capable of interstellar travel to know a little better than our "civilization"

Phrak

Would you believe it Al-Qaeda terrorists have hyjacked the shuttle and are training in zero gee IED construction at the international space station.

dgtech

They "HAD" WMDs, why not having a space program as well LOL

also free energy and anti gravity :D