On Sat, Dec 15, 2007 at 02:01:41PM -0700, Justin Findlay wrote: > On AD 2007 December 14 Friday 08:57:52 PM -0700, Charles Curley wrote: > > The navigation software that JPL used to guide the Voyager spacecraft > > past Jupiter and Saturn was done in Fortran. They may still be using > > that code, for all I know. > > Must be one way or another. Voyager II is making news because it > just hit the 'termination shock'--where solar wind slows down below > the speed of sound. Apparently this region fluctuates depending on > solar activity and interstellar currents. Exciting stuff. Soon > it'll be outside the heliopause which is where solar wind really > fades out.
Cool! Two spacecraft outside the heliopause! Neat! Now for a manned one... > Although you can make a gravitational claim that the solar system's > Oort cloud extends out to a radius halfway to Alpha Centauri it's > really amazing how far these craft have gone. Indeed it is! The Voyager spacecraft were designed for a fifteen year lifetime. And we're still getting useful science from them. The radiothermal generator provided, if I recall correctly, 120 watts of power at launch. Think about the implications for communications! I worked briefly at JPL for the folks who were responsible for the on-lab television system. If they didn't have anything else to show, they ran the latest picture from one of the spacecraft, at that time Voyager II. So I had the novel experience of coming out of my office to get a cup of coffee, walking down the hall and looking at a monitor at one end of the hall with a freshly minted hot off the spacecraft view of a new Jupiter on it. For you management types, that's my idea of a fringe benefit. -- Charles Curley /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign Looking for fine software \ / Respect for open standards and/or writing? X No HTML/RTF in email http://www.charlescurley.com / \ No M$ Word docs in email Key fingerprint = CE5C 6645 A45A 64E4 94C0 809C FFF6 4C48 4ECD DFDB
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
/* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
