Despite the fact that NASA's probes were launched 49 years ago and have long been in interstellar space, their onboard computers are still transmitting information to Earth.
Currently, the attention of many space enthusiasts is focused on the spacecraft "Orion," on which the astronauts of the Artemis 2 mission have successfully ventured beyond low Earth orbit and are on a journey around the Moon and back. It is important to remember that such impressive journeys require not only people but also computers. The computer system managing the Artemis 2 mission and the onboard computer on the Orion spacecraft are nothing like their outdated predecessors. However, the old onboard computers of NASA's Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft have been operational since 1977, writes Focus.
Recently, a video appeared on YouTube showcasing part of the computing equipment of NASA that supported the operation of the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes in the 1980s.
We remind you that both spacecraft were launched in 1977 to explore the outer planets of the Solar System, namely Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. In 2012, Voyager 1 entered interstellar space, and Voyager 2 did so in 2018. Despite the fact that NASA's probes have been in space for 49 years, they continue to function and use equipment that is older than some of NASA's current engineers.
In the video above, you can see a NASA engineer giving a tour of Building 230 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. The room features numerous refrigerator-sized computers produced by Univac and IBM. The engineer also shows punch cards that were previously used to communicate with the Voyager probes, as well as a communication center equipped with phones and small monitors.
All this outdated equipment was designed to ensure the reliable operation of the Voyager spacecraft, which are now over 25 billion kilometers away from Earth.
Both spacecraft carry a set of computers and electronics created even before 1977. Each Voyager spacecraft has three onboard computer systems with a total memory capacity of just 69.63 kilobytes. This is less than a standard JPEG file. The scientific data collected by NASA's probes is encoded on a digital 8-track device before being transmitted to Earth. Since the memory is so limited, the spacecraft continuously overwrite old data with new data after it has been sent to Earth at a rate of just 160 bits per second.
NASA now has to use the largest ground antennas to catch signals from the Voyager probes, which are gradually becoming weaker as the spacecraft move further away from Earth.
At the same time, NASA engineers have already had to turn off some of the electronics on the Voyager probes to save power in order to extend the mission of the two spacecraft. So far, no one can say exactly when these probes will completely fail and stop transmitting signals. But this could happen in the coming years.
It is worth noting that the computing power of the onboard computer of the Orion spacecraft of the Artemis 2 mission is 20,000 times greater than that of the onboard computers of the Apollo lunar missions in the 1960s and 70s. It is also 25 times greater than that of the onboard computer system of the International Space Station. Meanwhile, the data transmission speed of the Orion spacecraft is several gigabits per second.
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