Voyager 1 Fires Up Thrusters After 37 Years

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Voyager 1 Fires Up Thrusters After 37 Years

Quote

If you tried to start a car that's been sitting in a garage for decades, you might not expect the engine to respond. But a set of thrusters aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft successfully fired up Wednesday after 37 years without use.

Voyager 1, NASA's farthest and fastest spacecraft, is the only human-made object in interstellar space, the environment between the stars. The spacecraft, which has been flying for 40 years, relies on small devices called thrusters to orient itself so it can communicate with Earth. These thrusters fire in tiny pulses, or "puffs," lasting mere milliseconds, to subtly rotate the spacecraft so that its antenna points at our planet. Now, the Voyager team is able to use a set of four backup thrusters, dormant since 1980.

  Read More: NASA

 

[Nzo]

How I miss when things were made in America. When they were engineered and built well, they lasted a very very long time. Unlike today.

[Chaldon]

4 hours ago, Nzo said:

How I miss when things were made in America. When they were engineered and built well, they lasted a very very long time. Unlike today.

Damn, that's exactly how I miss when things were made in the USSR and were of great quality (that was up until the mid 80's). After that everything first become flimsy and plastic, and after that Chinese plastic.

[cyclopes500]

What humanity needs is the space equivalent of the steam ship and railway engine. America Canada and Australia weren't colonised by people using fantastic telescopes sited in Europe. It was done by the boots on the ground. The colonials. These people got to their destinations using ships. With them came cargo trade. The bigger the team the more resources it can collect in situ and the more it can achieve. If I'd been in charge of the Russian space effort I would have said fine America got their first, but we will build the first BASE and it will be Russian! Now it could easily be Chinese. What will that future megasupergiant be like on Earth with the resources from our moon I wonder? Looking outwards to Mars and yonder or at Earth with greedy jealous eyes like the Marsians were in the war of the worlds.

[bmk1245]

1 hour ago, Chaldon said:

Damn, that's exactly how I miss when things were made in the USSR and were of great quality (that was up until the mid 80's). After that everything first become flimsy and plastic, and after that Chinese plastic.

BS, things of high quality made in USSR were for exports. For local dwellers - crap.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

1 hour ago, cyclopes500 said:

 If I'd been in charge of the Russian space effort I would have said fine America got their first, but we will build the first BASE and it will be Russian!

That's exactly what the Soviets attempted. They did not abandon their manned lunar programme until 1976, some 4 years after the last Apollo mission to the moon. One of the main reasons that it was abandoned then was because the "high quality" Soviet goods Chaldon talks about, namely the N-1 rocket, exploded every time it was launched.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

6 hours ago, Nzo said:

How I miss when things were made in America. When they were engineered and built well, they lasted a very very long time. Unlike today.

Tell that to NASA. The Opportunity Mars rover was designed to last for 90 days on the Martian surface, It's still working over 13 years later.

[bmk1245]

2 hours ago, cyclopes500 said:

[...] but we will build the first BASE and it will be Russian! [...]

Rrright, Rogozin will build huge trampoline...

[Chaldon]

3 hours ago, bmk1245 said:

BS, things of high quality made in USSR were for exports. For local dwellers - crap.

You probably missed the 60's-70's era. The domestic consumer products were really good then. Looked a bit crude but worked wonderfully.

[Chaldon]

4 hours ago, cyclopes500 said:

If I'd been in charge of the Russian space effort I would have said fine America got their first, but we will build the first BASE and it will be Russian! Now it could easily be Chinese.

You forgot that Russia is now a capitalist state. Money and entertainment is all that everyone care about here. All the other doings for the sake of "country" and moreover "humanity" are nothing more than populistic political gestures. The people are too satisfied and the tension between the political powers today are far too weak to stimulate any nation for heroic conquest of inhospitable worlds.

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

5 hours ago, cyclopes500 said:

What will that future megasupergiant be like on Earth with the resources from our moon I wonder?

What resources does the Moon have that could justify the huge cost of going there in the first place ?

I am not in any way against manned space exploration, quite the contrary, but if we go back to the Moon it will be for science and as a stepping stone for going to Mars.  

[Derek Willis]

6 hours ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

That's exactly what the Soviets attempted. They did not abandon their manned lunar programme until 1976, some 4 years after the last Apollo mission to the moon. One of the main reasons that it was abandoned then was because the "high quality" Soviet goods Chaldon talks about, namely the N-1 rocket, exploded every time it was launched.

So would you also say the Soyuz rocket - still being used today after more than sixty years and 1,700 launches - is an example of "poor quality" Soviet goods?

[Derek Willis]

1 hour ago, Noteverythingisaconspiracy said:

What resources does the Moon have that could justify the huge cost of going there in the first place ?  

Cheese. Didn't you learn anything when you were at school?

[Waspie_Dwarf]

7 minutes ago, Derek Willis said:

So would you also say the Soyuz rocket - still being used today after more than sixty years and 1,700 launches - is an example of "poor quality" Soviet goods?

A fair point well made.

I would say that the Soviets generally did a good job with lower resources. The Soyuz was a far less advanced and sophisticated rocket than the US Atlas and so less to go wrong.

I would also point out that the predecessors of the Soyuz were designed to be  ICBMs... they were never used as such as they took too far long to deploy and fuel, meaning that they were totally useless for the role they were actually designed for. As such whether it is a quality product is a bit of a matter of perspective. 

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

13 minutes ago, Derek Willis said:

Cheese. Didn't you learn anything when you were at school?

Still it would be a very expensive cheese. 

[Derek Willis]

15 minutes ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

A fair point well made.

I would say that the Soviets generally did a good job with lower resources. The Soyuz was a far less advanced and sophisticated rocket than the US Atlas and so less to go wrong.

I would also point out that the predecessors of the Soyuz were designed to be  ICBMs... they were never used as such as they took too far long to deploy and fuel, meaning that they were totally useless for the role they were actually designed for. As such whether it is a quality product is a bit of a matter of perspective. 

Korolev was ordered by Khrushchev to deliver a "reliable large missile as quickly as possible". So he opted not to be too adventurous. He clustered his smaller missile to form the ICBM. And he stuck to using vernier motors rather than gimballed main motors, and gas generators to drive the pumps. Those decisions were what gave the Soviets the lead in the "space race" from 1957 to 1968. The US opted for more sophisticated designs and paid the price in terms of delays. As is well known, it was von Braun's "crude" Redstone that saved face in the US by launching their first satellite. Of course, once the US got their act together they took the lead and kept it. The Soviet's N-1 moon rocket suffered from having too many engines in the first stage. Korolev had taken that into account, but unfortunately died before the rocket reached the test stage. We should also remember the Soviets made a single successful unmanned flight of their Buran space shuttle in 1988. I find it ironic that the "crude" Soyuz rocket is still in service today. I would say the Soyuz rocket has the quality needed - it reliably delivers payloads at relatively low cost.

[Derek Willis]

40 minutes ago, Noteverythingisaconspiracy said:

Still it would be a very expensive cheese. 

Talking of the moon, I am looking at the "super moon" right now.

As an aside, I once read that in terms of how much it cost to get it back to Earth during the Apollo missions, moon rock is more valuable than diamonds. So even if it is not a great deal of use it has high value due to its scarcity here on Earth. But I wonder if the Space Treaty prevents companies bringing moon rock back to sell? 

[bmk1245]

6 hours ago, Chaldon said:

You probably missed the 60's-70's era. The domestic consumer products were really good then. Looked a bit crude but worked wonderfully.

Given the level of sophistication, you could say that. When you have electric motor and mechanical timer (for example, Riga-8 washing machine), its very hard to mess things up.

[Trelane]

Ah yes, the eager little computer. I recall how much it wanted to meet with its creator. Hopefully, Captain Decker is ready for his cue. Not as bothersome as that awful Kirk but motivated nonetheless.

[geraldnewfie]

all those years going through space and communicating and apple cant even make a phone without breaking first drop on the floor :P, nasa should make cell phones, they will never break !

[cyclopes500]

The Chinese are repeatedly building islands in the Pacific and claiming the territory. I'm wondering if they'll do the same in the craters on the moon's poles. Water was detected in some that don't get full sunlight and I was picturing them jumping from one to the next. Also in the lunar soil is Helium 3 and that is a fusion reactor fuel. As for anything else. Well they'll be the boots on the ground not us so who knows what they'll find. An alien ship or base perhaps. One buried and protected from the elements from space. Not only will they be there they'll have their hands on the technology. Remember the Chinese are a very inventive science friendly race who are prone to breaking world rules. Do you really think they'd hand Star Trek equivalent technology over to the UN for analysis? The US hasn't and that will be their excuse not to. If its sheltered inside the base it won't be damaged like it would be in a crash on Earth.

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

7 hours ago, Derek Willis said:

 The Soviet's N-1 moon rocket suffered from having too many engines in the first stage. Korolev had taken that into account, but unfortunately died before the rocket reached the test stage.

The reason they chose this illfated design is long and convoluted, but if people are intersted they can find more here:  http://www.astronautix.com/n/n1.html 

On the other hand the rocket engine that was developed for the N-1 were of an extremely advanced design that is still used today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NK-33

[Derek Willis]

6 hours ago, Noteverythingisaconspiracy said:

The reason they chose this illfated design is long and convoluted, but if people are intersted they can find more here:  http://www.astronautix.com/n/n1.html 

On the other hand the rocket engine that was developed for the N-1 were of an extremely advanced design that is still used today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NK-33

Your mention of the NK-15 engine used in the N-1 rocket is an example of the irony of the Soviet space program. This engine was 25% more efficient than the F-1 engines used in the first stage of the Saturn V which sent US astronauts to the moon. However, the NK-15 produced only 25% of the thrust of the F-1. The Soviets were hindered by political interference and rivalry among the factions within their space industry. Consequently, after the mid-1960s they spent vast sums of money for little gain. 

[Derek Willis]

21 hours ago, Noteverythingisaconspiracy said:

Still it would be a very expensive cheese. 

By a strange coincidence I would say the cheese which looks most like the surface of the moon is Danish Blue.

Edited December 4, 2017 by Derek Willis

[paperdyer]

All I can say is Go V'ger Go!