Voyager's 15 Billion Mile Software Update

[@primalspace]

Where would you send Voyager today? - Shoutout to NordVPN for supporting this vid, check them out here: nordvpn.com/primalspace

[@KadenPlaysRBLX]

I use nordvpn it’s so good

[@nerdest]

me personally, i would send the voyager 3 towards venus. let it crash. and while it is still in the atmosphere free falling. take some great photos and scientific data. probably 'cause we haven't seen venus' surface yet because of its clouds.

[@vighneshpokale5287]

I would just send it into a black hole just to see how everything looks and how massive it is mainly because I have never been able to fully grasp the size of a black hole

[@NanoCubeOG]

@@nerdestbut we... have??

[@ymodnar]

@@nerdest venera

[@JimmyZNJ]

As a software engineer for several decades, I have great respect for the technical complexity the Voyager team has dealt with over the many years. Voyager never ceases to impress and inspire me as to what is possible!

[@scottharvey-davies1607]

I'm an old comms guy from the 90's (modem era) and I agree. We don't make 'em like we use to bud !!

[@ryelor123]

I was worried he'd have said COBOL but then I remembered that Voyagers 1 and 2 aren't ancient banks.

[@zlackbiro]

You sould be more smarter than that, believing in NASA craps!

[@tompsheridantsheridant7354]

Replying to @JimmyZNJ: You have been software engineer for 7 decades.

[@libertymouth6826]

Are you taking some mind bending substances or are you naturally unintelligent?

[@pjimmbojimmbo1990]

Launched over 45 yrs ago and still ticking. The Engineers that designed it, and those that keep it running, certainly deserve a Round of Applause. Edit/addon The Voyagers, and the Pioneers, will likely be the Only Things created on Earth that will still Exist, long after the Earth is gone

[@RamiKattan]

While all earth operating systems and apps fail continuously with 100s of engineers and quick update 😅

[@tihomirrasperic]

voyager is like the pyramids just like we don't know how they built the pyramids new generations will not understand how Voyager works and how with those computers we got to the moon in the first place

[@eldergeektromeo9868]

or at least a drink!

[@Flesh_Wizard]

​@@RamiKattanmore parts, more points of faliure

[@orangejjay]

​@@tihomirraspericNot necessarily. It's not like Voyager doesn't have documentation on it. Pretty much anything coded back then came with a hefty manual and those were designed to help people then and in the foreseeable future to be able to keep things going.

[@varmaranjeet168]

50 years ago 70 KB of memory took voyager across the solar system. Today - my HP laptop with 16 GB RAM cannot run Chrome without getting stuck at least once. Much respect to the engineers of that age and to the team that built this incredible masterpiece ❤

[@strategistaow3520]

Its because Hewlett Packard

[@TessaractAlemania-hd7tv]

hahaha it's so true ^^ What for a bad OS (Microsoft)...

[@bradsmith1314]

software -_-

[@BubbyLive]

My PC with 32GBs of memory

[@Teluric2]

Your HP laptop must br flawed..in my job everybody had HP.

[@karlnielsen5759]

I'll be honest, I normally can't stand sponsorship plugs. However, the sponsorship transition in this video: "Voyager runs the latest version of NordVPN...not really", this genuinely made me smile and chuckle. Well done.

[@primalspace]

Haha thanks so much. I really appreciate that, and your support for the channel as well. It means a lot 🙏

[@daveys]

Agreed. Still fwd’ the NordVPN advert though.

[@Coolguy_2491]

lol made the like count to 124 instead of 123

[@Adrian-vd6ji]

all u have to do is tap the screen 3 times on its right side to fastforward the commercial. not the end of the world

[@FriedMonkey362]

I hated it and it made me consider takng my own life

[@alanlowe9716]

50 years ago I was writing perfectly functional control programs in assembly language where I only had 1kb of memory. When they upgraded to a 2kb memory, I thought it was amazing and allowed me to put so much more functionality into the program. If I had the 70kb of Voyager's memory to play with, that would have felt like an infinite amount of space at the time.

[@MarisZadinans]

Nice! How old are you man?

[@Pyranders]

@@MarisZadinans At least 50, I'm guessing.

[@alanlowe9716]

@@Pyranders At least... 😁

[@alanlowe9716]

@@MarisZadinans Old enough to remember when 2kb was a lot 😃

[@TheRailroad99]

I'm rather young, but used to embedded development and also thought 70kB - thats not too bad. About the same a modern MCU has. If you had to deal with MCUs a lot you start to optimize your code. Even my rather complex automation/industrial software for Win32/Unix uses just a few megabytes, never more than 40-50MB for the really large programs. All while the browser I use in parallel to develop the thing easily pulls 2GB, sometimes even up to 8GB.

[@OlNoName]

Old computers always impress me more than modern ones because it felt like they were pushing waaay beyond their limit, one super basic computer doing so much. And to see it still running is incredible

[@ClassyJohn]

yep, thats why assembly programmers were more common back then than today.

[@NikPower-gs6hs]

⁠@@ClassyJohneven if you write assembly language today it would be useless on something like Windows or any operating system really. You can write a micro-kernel or just bare-bones and implement only a few important things but then you would still need to learn thousands of assembly instructions for x86 in particular (SSE-AVX and more) and learn to use them all in an optimized way, which would take 5-10 years. By then who knows if x86 will be still around

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

The joy I felt when I managed to get 624k base memory free on my DOS machine while maintaining mouse, CD and audio functionality while also allowing boot into Windows without any changes of the configuration. The fact that the keyboard driver takes only 880 byte and the mouse driver only 3328 byte is just amazing. In fact, the total memory usage (in base and upper memory is only about 55.3 kb)

[@NikPower-gs6hs]

@@HappyBeezerStudios a mouse driver from the era should not be that much

[@1marcelfilms]

Its still impressive how super inefficient and crap modern software is.

[@joeyager8479]

I'm a retired machine designer and it's incredible that the Voyagers are still operating today and that IT engineers can keep these spacecraft updated to continue to perform at a high level for almost 50 years. Also, not too often mentioned, much credit should go to the craftsmen, machinists and assemblers that put these together. Excellent work!

[@ncard00]

Heard that Voyager 1 travels at 17km/s. It we sent out a cutting edge space probe tomorrow, how much faster would it travel, and how long would it take, before it caught up to Voyager 1?

[@witchcraftanditsconsequenc4280]

​@@ncard00I have a feeling that you'll need to ask an engineer about that instead... One that isn't retired. Not to spread hate or anything of course, I might be wrong.

[@ДмитрийБудаев-д8к]

@@ncard00 Современные аппараты быстрее не полетят. Но зато они могут быть мощнее и у них будет больше памяти.

[@Mesazane]

It's insane how things from 50 years ago still work like this. Applause to the engineers and programmers who made and maintained the voyager until now.

[@SiriProject]

Lightbulbs and frying pans made in that period also work perfectly fine today, but newer ones get destroyed in a couple uses. Don't know if that also applies to spacecraft, but damn those were good.

[@theepicbruhman2254]

@@SiriProject new ones dont break that fast

[@capriumnoir6426]

@@SiriProject Its a marketing tactic, make appliances that purposely fail at a certain date so that consumers will buy another. I don't think engineers making a spacecraft would wanna apply this same tactic tho

[@adnanmahmudshohan4951]

​@@capriumnoir6426Im not a conspiracy theorist but this is 100 percent true.

[@asterixdx]

because planned obsolescence wasn’t a design philosophy at nasa.

[@matthewgumabon7498]

I image the people recruited by NASA to do this update as actual wizards. Masters of forgotten (programming) languages tasked with bringing an ancient machine adrift in the void realm back to life… Absolutely epic

[@Hit_by_a_Parked_Car]

Techpriests

[@NikPower-gs6hs]

@@alaamrouenever mind I read the comment wrong but still it is written as Fortran

[@alecepting1371]

I interviewed and was offered a job at JPL. Turned them down because I didn't have a PhD (just an MSEE) and they wanted me to manage the subcontractors (for Galileo). But what was cool as I arrived for the interview right after the active volcano was observed on one of the moons of Jupiter, I could see the flyby video on the monitors at their facility.

[@HunterKiotori]

​@@alecepting1371if they offered you the job already you should have taken it

[@alecepting1371]

@@HunterKiotori That was 1980. I took a job with IBM working on artificial neural networks, so I'm not complaining.

[@williambrasky3891]

Fortran and assembly aren’t “from the 40s and 50s.” Fortran was developed at IBM in the 50s, yes, but assembly is still used in every computer even today. Computers in the 40s used punch cards and some were even physically rewired for “programming.” Also what you described later in the video as “pseudocode” isn’t. It’s called a function or a subroutine. Pseudocode describes shorthand to outline the flow of a program before it is written in actual code.

[@jrkorman]

Epic fail in my opinion - a quick check with Wiki would've "fixed" that. I was writing new FORTRAN code in the late 1990s.

[@einsteinx2]

Yeah after hearing so many obvious errors in information that I have experience with it makes me question how many other obvious errors are in this video about the stuff I don’t have the experience with…

[@qaziquza]

On top of that, the displayed assembly is *clearly* written for a hosted environment (an 8080-based DOS variant, if I'm reading things right).

[@niallrussell7184]

makes me wonder what else is incorrect in this video, when they fumble something so easy.

[@p.asenov8117]

I just stopped the video after hearing this.

[@hawkeyegaming3340]

Hats off to all the engineers and scientists who worked on voyager mission. I'm sure there will be many more incredible missions in space exploration but Voyager is the best thing done by mankind for space exploration

[@primalspace]

Hats off indeed!

[@LVNCHBOXXX]

bro 15 billion miles away? i dont even get good wifi from my router upstairs....

[@anirudh_dobhal]

So f**king true bro

[@kasinathar1874]

Dang 15,000,000,000 miles / 240,000,000 kms. 🐷🐷🐷 flying.👍🏽

[@unrenownedc]

It takes quite a while for it to reach Voyager

[@superamario6464]

Voyager 1 and 2 have this aura about them for me. Its like a reverence with absolute wonder over the era in which they were built, deployed and still out there today. I do get misty eyed, especially around August 20th and always wish Voyager 2 a happy birthday

[@ivan_d_feets4495]

Nah I totally feel the same way. The fact it was made with such old but innovative tech just boggles my mind. Old but reliable as they say

[@utkarsharora5329]

I am totally amazed how the transistors made 50 years ago still function as intended. It would be nice if a voyager 3 could observe the Oort Cloud and be capable enough to send some photos back to Earth.

[@francescozani9488]

It's not possible, unfortunately. Optical devices has been de-activatex long ago. And in the deep abyss travelling now, only far stars could be seen.

[@jbruck6874]

Unfirtunately, its not that fast. Voyager is still close to 100ish AU, while the Oort cloud starts at 2000. Acc. to Wikipedia it will take another 300 years - at least we may be retired by then and watch the amazing pictures it sends back ;-) en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud

[@CalebRoenigk]

As others have mentioned the power source on board has required NASA to permanently deactivate unused equipment to keep the main machine running. The cameras have long been off as space at that distance is much too dark to see anything. Edit: I realized I didn't explain why the power source requires this. The power source for those that don't know is nuclear and of course decays over time. As decay happens, the power output is less and certain gadgets that require a constant power flow need to be turned off in order to still provide enough power to run the main computer.

[@marcse7en]

I have a Commodore LED Calculator, with 47 year old integrated circuit which still works. Mind you, it's NOT been exposed to the cold vacuum of space!

[@nickolaswilcox425]

@@CalebRoenigk arent certain sensors no longer possible to turn on even if the code and power were restored? something about certain parts requiring heaters and those were turned off when the component was, presumably resulting in unrecoverable damage

[@ASMM1981EGY]

As an Egyptian Astronomer who is interested in the twin Voyagers since decades, this is one of the best videos on the internet EVER about the twin probes. Great respects to the channel.

[@BestFilmproducer]

Except for the NordVPN ad inside it, of course. That is the only thing wrong with the video, though.

[@krolmuch]

it sounds like one of these random scenarios to follow up a chain of comment

[@Bax365]

Incredible how we have managed to extend the life of the voyager missions decades beyond their planned lifespans. Thanks for the incredibly insightful video. 👍

[@primalspace]

Incredible indeed! Thank you for watching and so glad you enjoyed the video.

[@Just_a_Piano_]

I honestly think they should try to create a new one with modern technolagy which could last a LOT longer and still have the ability to take pictures from so far away, it'd obviously take a REALLY long time for it to get anywhere worth taking a picture of but I'd imagine a voyager with modern tech would last a lot longer than with the stuff we made back in the 40s, it's still insanely impressive stuff made all the way back 80 or so years ago still works all the way out there

[@tomikun8057]

​@@Just_a_Piano_They'll probably do that when the planets align again. Apparently it'll be in 2151-2154. It's required to wait cause there's not enough fuel to brute force an escape so gravity assists are needed

[@hueanao]

​@@tomikun8057it is possible to brute force, but that would be financial insanity.

[@tomikun8057]

@@hueanao Am pretty sure it is literally impossible for a rocket with current tech to get enough velocity out of the solar system by brute force

[@xXRedTheDragonXx]

I'm a software engineer and I have a hard time making programs that run continuously for 2 years in controlled environments here on Earth. For a computer to run continuously for decades millions of miles away from Earth, that's just downright insane. I hope we can keep talking to Voyager for as long as possible! That little probe is the furthest thing away from us humans, and I hope we can use it to learn so much stuff before it finally goes dark and drifts amongst the stars forever.

[@furinick]

Nasa has some coding standards to handle space, stuff like not using pointers and adding hard limits to loops (like a for loop having some counter that will end it)

[@emergency.jergens]

Technically the software for has to be very simple. The crazy part about it is how survivable the components are and how they can be updated

[@LanceMcGrew]

and when we can no longer control, hopefully some extraterrestrial will.

[@vallorahn]

Ackchyuallly.... Its more like billions of miles away. 1000x off there :)

[@Kenny2k08]

I also love that we prepared for if it actually finds an alien planet, they can play a golden record and learn about who we were a little bit, long after we are gone. It’s the only way humanity will be able to leave its mark on this vast universe. Maybe one day, billions of years from now, it makes its way into a random solar system, gets sucked into a habitable planet’s gravity and lands somewhere near an alien village and absolutely blows their minds. It’s unlikely, but the fact they considered it anyway just brings me comfort that at least something from humanity will be out there. Would be a total waste if it ends up just getting sucked into a black hole or something though.

[@stevencooper2464]

The very first programming language I learned, almost 50 years ago, was Fortran, followed later by CDC Cyber 6000 assembly, and, much later, 6502 and 8086 assembly. There's no way I would be qualified to write programs for the Voyagers, but it's nice to dream...even at my age.

[@Proxz]

Is there any way to learn fortran now?

[@stevencooper2464]

@@ProxzI'm sure there is. Fortran's not a dead language. I may still have the textbook I had for class.

[@sarcasticguy4311]

@@Proxz They were still teaching basic instruction in Fortran, Unix, Assembly and Cobol when I was in computer classes in the early 90s. Why? Because all that old equipment still ran on it. Most of it is gone now and those languages are considered relics by today's standards.

[@Proxz]

@@sarcasticguy4311 its a cool idea to learn these "old" languages, maybe i could widen my coding vocabulary, and a fortran/cobol coder isnt really common, im not sure about its uses today though

[@alecepting1371]

That's exactly the path I took. Were you at Georgia Tech in the late 1970's? They had a Cyber mainframe back then.

[@stefanbuscaylet]

I’ve been involved in design of flash memory and associated SSDs and its pretty much the same basic concept as in voyager just our industry today makes a single flash die with a terabit of memory cells vs 17Kb. I’m super impressed they seemed to have gone away without any error detection/correction on their non-volatile memory and they certainly got lucky when they did have a bit flip that they found a way to recover it. I’d love for NASA to open source their software for Voyager if only to just let the world these old machines were made so reliable. Some either long retired and/or passed along engineers that built this non-volatile memory really need to receive the recognition for a job well done!

[@TheBcoolGuy]

There is a real decline in competence and high-level skill in the western world in the modern day. People have gotten so complacent and into the mindset of "someone else can do it" that no-one can do it anymore. It wouldn't solve the problem on its own, but preserving and openly sharing this knowledge that was so hard to achieve in the first place would give a lot more to the few who are actually working to be that good to work with.

[@hedgehog3180]

Well I guess in this case the error detection and correction is just NASA itself, and you probably couldn't ask for anything better.

[@lophilip]

This type of memory is called magnetic "core" memory. Although not as compact as "RAM" or flash memory, it is much more resistant to radiation - something that is important for space applications.

[@kloakovalimonada]

Thank you for your service (really!)

[@kloakovalimonada]

@@TheBcoolGuytbf today's engineers and computers are asked to do insane amounts of insanely difficult things, all at once, connected to each other

[@jayski9410]

I'm 70 years old and although I never worked as a programmer, but I remember learning Assembler for the early Intel processors. And as some have mentioned below, I can remember working on key punch machines that created stacks of "IBM" cards. Each card held one line of code. You submitted the whole stack to a computer center and came back the next day to see if your program ran. One tiny little syntax error, on one card, and that's where the whole thing would stop. Needless to say we've come a long way. But on the bright side, there was no such thing as malware or viruses in those days.

[@waltertanner7982]

Greetings from Germany! I am a few years older, and my first programs in 1970 on a CD3300 were written on a teletype and punched on a roll of paper tape, using a 5Bit-ASCII code.

[@joshnoshhosh]

Greetings from Finland, I'm just hitting 83 this year. My first program was a lo-li hentai in the late 90s

[@xxriellixx978yt3]

@@joshnoshhoshI hope you feel accomplished

[@josepherhardt164]

Yeah, back in those days, the wildest thing to do was to get the chain printer to sing "Dixie," or maybe the "Colonel Bogey March." I'm sure someone collected a whole album of such songs. Of course, this meant allocating the printer directly to the program (a "dedicated" printer); you couldn't do this well by sending the print output through the printing queue.

[@josephkanowitz6875]

ב''ה, except the actual breathing on each other. Can anyone explain why the brightest minds at KZbin are now really into that?

[@jean-emmanuelrotzetter6030]

Fortran has been released only in the late fifties, Assembler is kind of "machine language", can be called a "human readable form of the machine language" of a specific computer type with first systems in the very late forties. Voyager simply is incredible - a system that works for so long, and that still can undergo software updates despite almost impossible data communication by the distance and available power.

[@alecepting1371]

They use Reed-Solomon error-correcting code. Without that the signal would be way too noisy to get legitimate data.

[@bachi2784]

@@alecepting1371 it would be interesting to know how that error-correction works since there's so much unpredictable interference at this great distance.

[@alecepting1371]

@@bachi2784 Error correcting codes can be designed to correct any number of errors. The codes just become longer. I'm sure they keep uploading new firmware with greater error correction as the spacecraft gets further and further away and the signal-to-noise ratios drop off.

[@kales901]

is assembler like assembly?

[@alecepting1371]

@@kales901 Technically, the assembler is what creates assembly code from the machine code which is just a sequence of binary numbers which fills the program memory. The assembly code is more readable than machine code but there is a one-to-one correspondence between it and the actual machine code. It is very low level, like loading a register with a number, decrementing the register by 1, branch on zero to a specific address, etc

[@Adam-ge7wx]

For Voyager 3 I would do a grand tour of the solar system, with the end goal of doing the exact same thing as the original voyagers, with modern hardware. I think that those missions were absolutely awesome!

[@imEden0]

too bad the next voyager window is 2151-2154. hopefully we do something cool for that

[@Adam-ge7wx]

@@soulsphere9242 yeah i know, im just saying that would be cool af

[@volbla]

Do we need the same alignment to as far though? Surely rocket technology and materials science has advanced by a lot since the original probes.

[@proatplanes]

@@volbla Yes but the voyagers relied on the gravity assists of the planets to give it enough momentum to get to escape velocity of the sun.

[@JohnSmith-zw8vp]

The fact that Voyager 2 could do a grand tour (not to be confused with the George Jones song) was an astronomical miracle as the four gas giants had to be positioned just right.

[@AlanTheBeast100]

FORTAN was heavily in use all through the 70's, 80' and 90's as a go to for engineering and other math/science purposes. Assembly never dies - it is everywhere - though most program in higher level languages. Assembly in "production" s/w went well into the 80's and 90's though C replaced much of that. Some compilers output to assembly code on their way to object code.

[@pansepot1490]

I remember studying Fortran in high school. In the eighties. Man, time flies.

[@prague5419]

I was going to go off on that guy about "assembler being from the 50s". You beat me to it and said it just as I might of, I would have put more stink on it. I wrote my first program in 1982 on a Commodore 64 in 6502 machine language (assembler by today's definition). As a MODERN 64-bit assembler programmer, I was offended at the misrepresentation. But then again, the sheer list of things he got wrong in this video became too long to respond to. Ha ha.

[@bschwand]

some compiler output to assembly ? what are you talking about. You can request a compiler to show the assembly in textual form, yes, but assembly is the output of the compiler, by definition. compilers generate assembly that is passed straight on to the... assembler to produce object i.e. binary code. Compiler also produce intermediary code depending on which pass it is working and on the front-end, etc. Assembly is quite alive and well whenever you want to bring up a machine or particularly in device specific embedded systems (microcontrollers)

[@johnk9895]

At one time in the '80s, when I was using PCs for some industrial control systems, I had to add some code to the BIOS - all in machine hex of course. But then, because my additions changed the checksum code, I had to find the checksum routine and zero it out. It wasn't too difficult until I had to upgrade to the XP, where the BIOS used two EPROMS, with the even bytes in one chip and the odd bytes in the other. That was fun!

[@takanara7]

@@bschwand Old compilers would sometimes output assembler and that would then get converted to object code. Probably not very common anymore

[@rolandschweiger8678]

born 1970 i grew up with Commodore64 and as a youth did lots of programming in Assembly on the 6510 processor and i learnt the most profound things about computer architecture at that time. No direct connection to Voyager but i do still today have the look and feel of how detailled you have to work when writing assembly language programs, carefully using the interrupts with polling, making no mistakes with jump and compare instructions etc. my deepest respect for the engineers of Voyager!

[@This_1_guy]

45 years with no physical interaction, and giving how old the technology is, it is very impressive.

[@Prof.Paradox-re9rd]

2:50 omg that sponsor really scared 💀

[@freeman10000]

It just blows my mind that both Voyagers are still operational. Superb engineering 👏

[@travelsouthafrica5048]

what blows my mind is that some hacker hasn't tried hijacking the probe by now

[@mcbchannel7173]

@@travelsouthafrica5048 because in order to hijack that little probe those hackers would need some gigantic antennas and gigantic satellite dishes which isn’t economically viable

[@Umski]

I’m astounded that they were able to build over-the-air updates into the hardware considering the time when it was designed - decades ahead of its time and still going strong 💪

[@mattcook4401]

Keep on believing.

[@dcfuksurmom]

Is it still over the air if its going through space? Not a lot of air there lol. Jokes aside, it is pretty amazing.

[@Umski]

@@dcfuksurmom "over-the-ether" 😁

[@dcfuksurmom]

@@Umski lol

[@dcfuksurmom]

@@Umski I was thinking over the universe but over the ether is better

[@kaiserwhence2468]

That sponsor transition made me spit my drink ,you owe me one! 2:57

[@maxrabiega592]

i cannot comprehend the pure scale, distance and technical ability in this video. this is so insanely impressive.

[@calavera42]

It's incredible how the robustness of the Voyager has allowed it to survive all these years and continue to discover new things

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Robust often means old but proven. For example the James Webb space telescope runs on a RAD750 processor, a radiation hardened version of a PowerPC 750, the same chip used in the Gamecube and the G3 Mac. Except that the Macs from 1998-1999 ran at 233 to 450 MHz, the Gamecube is from 2001 and it's 750CXe runs at 486 MHz and the RAD750 on the telescope from 2021 runs at 118 MHz. Yes, a Nintendo Gamecube is about 4 times as powerful as a modern deep space telescope. And the system on the Space Shuttle orbiters ran on System/4 Pi, an adaptation of the System/360 mainframe architecture from the mid 1960s. In the mid 90s it was upgraded from magnetic core memory to semiconductor memory. It had 5 of these computers per orbiter, 4 running actively and one as backup, each capable of processing 0.48 MIPS. The Intel 486 DX2/66, the chip famously recommended to run Doom, had 25.6 MIPS, which means it would take about 14 Space Shuttles to run the original release of Doom. When the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011, a typical, upper midrange computer at home was about 43000 times as powerful and the following year the Galaxy S3 was about 5700 times as powerful as a Space Shuttle. In fact, the RAD750 in the James Webb space telescope is close to 140 times as powerful as a Space Shuttle. Part of the radiation hardening is obviously shielding, but another big part are large fabrication processes and low clock speeds.

[@mauricioegel]

We should send a new Voyager... using all the lessons learned and modern tech. So the future generations can have an amazing device to enjoy as we have today.

[@primalspace]

I would love that!

[@SEB1991SEB]

And the very first thing written on it for the aliens could be "Please disregard previous message".

[@w花b]

​@@SEB1991SEBthen the next one will say the same

[@stringercorrales6627]

The new Voyager should use a 48x48 film camera with loads of color sheet film that blasts off to earth when used up.

[@Zreknarf]

we did, it's called 'new horizons' and was launched in 2006. voyager 1 and 2 abused a really neat gravity assist from jupiter and saturn, the planets aren't aligned for that very often. we can't actually launch anything faster or further than voyager today without waiting several decades for that launch window again

[@astro2k19]

That NordVPN segue got me rolling 😂

[@primalspace]

😂😂😂

[@leolee7378]

Every time I see a video of Voyager, I can't help but exclaim, this is really a great engineering miracle, and the more time goes by, the more I admire the scientists and engineers who designed and built this detector.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Never forget that Pioneer 10 and 11 are also still out there. Contact is lost, but they managed to extend their mission from 2 years to 30 years

[@nerdobject5351]

Even by todays standards the engineering that went into Voyager is remarkable. It’s not sexy but the constraints they had to work in to produce this much functionality is an amazing feat.

[@Scrpius]

The good old days when things were built to last

[@sagarjawale1374]

Just like relationships

[@abinjoseph5028]

As a child, gazing up at the stars while learning about the Voyager spacecraft's incredible journey through the cosmos filled me with a sense of wonder and infinite possibilities. Thank you for bringing back those memories.

[@lawrencelink4394]

So stunning. It's amazed how after all those miles the signal can still be decoded and run..

[@tahititoutou3802]

I really do admire the team who designed Voyager 1 and 2. With the hardware and software resources they had in the 70, it is a genuine tour de force. Hats off! Kudos!

[@anix2457]

The voyager programme’s longevity is testament to the wonderful skilled professionals who designed, built and programmed them. Humankind’s finest. 👍

[@paramaniacwolverine843]

absolutely! It's so sad how their work and skill is being insulted by the space deniers today. There isn't one social media platform that doesn't have these trolls trashing the space program. Being a South African, I marvel at their lack of knowledge, and most of them stay within a 5 hour drive of all the installations used to launch. I'd give a left kidney to see the NASA installation.

[@ΑστέριοςΑστερίου-π7π]

I believe we need a mission to the dwarf planets in the Kuiper belt, we know so little about Haumeia, Makemake and Eris but they still are as interesting as anything else.

[@primalspace]

A great idea. Thanks for sharing and good luck in the giveaway!

[@Graymanjft]

I retired in March after a career as a programmer/application developer/software engineer/etc. for about 40 years. The first computer I ever programmed on was an AIM-65 using 6502 assembler. I've watched over the years as programs became more and more bloated and code less and less efficient. "Don't worry about it. Memory is cheap and the processors are fast." I remember when I was a kid groing up and Viking landed on Mars. I got up at 5 in the morning to watch as the first pictures of the Mars surface were sent back. Fascinating. I have always been more intested in the planets than deep space exploration so I would send Voyager on more trips around the outer planets.

[@o0Donuts0o]

I was launched 45 years ago as well and I’m still operational. Great engineering! Thanks, dad!

[@raviolimavioli]

I love that you don't oversimplify the technical details, well it still has simplification but for better presentation. Rather than saying "nasa updated the voyager 1 code, by beaming software update to their machine" and not expanding how it's done, you include how it is updated, which language does it use, how was the error, even explained bits of information like pseudocode/instruction (just like x86 instruction) and much more with appealing animation. Very well done

[@primalspace]

Thank you so much! It is always my intention to simplify without over-simplifying haha, so I'm glad you've been enjoying that balance.

[@darknebulae7470]

@@primalspace I'd like to ask how did you get/make the the animations? It's amazing.

[@sulaimankhan2839]

Just love how we’re living this era of human exploration at its peak! And how amazing it is to see such smart and intelligent individuals who not only helped voyager steer back and face earth when it went out of angle but to continually work with something so old. Love it!!

[@psivewri]

I’d love to hear about how the thrusters can still be fuelled after so many years. Do the thrusters simply use very little each time they’re activated?

[@Dlog_M125]

I am also curious. Also hi, good to see you here! Waiting for another car video!

[@primalspace]

Exactly, it still has hydrazine fuel left in its tank. It helped that Voyager followed it's trajectory so accurately, therefore being super efficient with it's fuel.

[@priatalat]

What’s amazing is how the voyager is powered. It has a nuclear battery, which just means a radioactive element undergoing permanent fission. Since space is so cold, the ‘reactor’ is kept cool enough to not melt. Here’s the coolest part. It uses the difference in temperature between the battery and space to generate a current. It’s called a thermoelectric effect, where a voltage can be created using temperature differences. It’s crazy.

[@lindaj5492]

I wonder if Musk has picked up on that idea for his Mars mission?

[@mustangwolf1997]

Space isn't cold, it's empty. Cold only applies when there's a medium that can hold thermal energy, which the vacuum of space can't. So convection cooling is definitely not what's happening. The cold side of the RTG's thermocouplers are attached to the outer case, which has fins mounted on it to passively radiate the heat into space. The RTG's fuel source is also not a material undergoing fission, it is Plutonium-238 undergoing natural decay. It will never melt down as there is no chain reaction exciting it.

[@priatalat]

@@mustangwolf1997 I had no idea, so then what would space “feel” like? I just knew there’s no such thing as cold as it simply means lack of heat/energy. So since space lacks energy I assumed it was cold. And isn’t fission the same thing as decay? The difference being the speed at which it loses its particles since they’re both characterized by the loss of neutrons held together by the strong nuclear force. Or is it the weak nuclear force that’s in play for decay?

[@wasd____]

@@lindaj5492 I'd prefer for Musk to pick up on the idea that his Mars mission is an unfeasible fool's errand, not think that RTGs are a magic solution.

[@mustangwolf1997]

@@priatalat Ignoring the explosive pressure issue, you would still get really cold after enough time, as radiating heat is really efficient in a vacuum and there's nothing helping you keep warm externally, so your body temp would still drop. But that's you losing heat naturally as radiation, not dumping it into something with less energy, which is what defines something as being cold. Space doesn't feel like anything because it isn't anything. And no, fission and decay are not the same. Fission happens when the nucleus splits into a couple new completely different nuclei of roughly comparable size to each other. The largest things a typical decaying nuclide produces over its life are alpha particles, maybe a small cluster, and whatever stable element remains after decay. You can consistently predict what it will create, which isn't the case for fission. Spontaneous fission is classified as a decay because it occurs naturally in superheavy elements when the repulsive force of the protons overcomes the strong nuclear force, maybe that's what you were thinking of?

[@raj_prithzz]

A incredible journey through space. Hats off to the engineers for this achievement of marking a presence outside of solar system..

[@primalspace]

An incredible journey indeed!

[@AWS.]

An amazing peice of human ingenuity and engineering I have huge respect for the people who made it and keeping it running.

[@rogalik2500]

"Assembly is a very simple language"💀

[@vallukfarm]

The language itself is really simple .. just not easy to write

[@abdc2990]

Simple =! Easy :) It's simple, but difficult!

[@SkyRayPest69]

Bro its : section .data msg db 'easy...' len equ $ - msg section .text global _start _start: MOV eax,4 MOV ebx,1 Mov ecx,msg Mov edx,len Int 0x80 Eax,1 Xor ebx,ebx Int 0x80 Easy...

[@qpwodkgh2010]

As usual, your segway into a commercial is fantastic. Respect.

[@primalspace]

Haha thank you so much.

[@scott-ish404]

I'd send the hypothetical Voyager 3 spacecraft to Uranus again, - both for in the name of science and due to sheer nostalgia, since at a personal level, by the time Voyager 2 reached it in 1986, I was already old enough to appreciate the importance of such event - and that made me hooked on following news about its journey through space since - so much so that I could barely await for its rendezvous with equally gelid Neptune three years later.

[@-SpaceNewsNow-]

I would send voyager III with a trajectory with lots of gravity assists, then I would point it towards Alpha Centauri so that generations in a few thousand years would be able to see what it looks like.

[@Gamingniqqa]

Shit idea not gonna lie. Generations in a few thousand years will easily have the ability to see/travel to alpha Centauri. If you don’t already know this you’re ignorant or stupid.

[@heroaax7589]

I hope I will still live in 2073, when the next Voyager will be able to Start 😢

[@AFoulOdor]

Excellent work by the Voyager engineers! It is amazing that Voyager is still operating.

[@elry6030]

The Voyager is a living monument, almost all people know about but have not seen, it is a symbol of what we can achieve if we pursue it. Voyager will outlive most of us but I hope that people remember what technological challenges Voyager has overcome to reach its destination. If we could launch another, I would say send it in the opposite direction, with the technology we have today, imagine what more we can equip the modern Voyager.

[@kinglycrown10101]

Honestly it's amazing how human engineering and advancements in technology allows us to interact with a box of metal which is 15billion km away. If it were up to me I would want to send voyager to the center of our galaxy , though it's a long trip, I'm sure we will find lots of interesting stuff about interstellar dust and more , anyways great video as always. Keep uploading 🎉

[@Jezee213]

The fact that it has worked this long and reliably is amazing to me and the people that worked on this, the entire team should be incredibly proud!

[@Sometimes_Always]

I loved this.. The NordVPN was really well done.. You had me for a couple of milliseconds 🙂

[@smakfu1375]

Fortran is becoming rarer but is still not uncommon, though I imagine the Fortran 77 used in the Voyager spacecraft is pretty esoteric and has some fairly big differences when compared to modern Fortran. However, to say assembler is from the 40's and 50's is silly, as it's still a core staple skill for low-level software engineering. Understanding and writing assembly routines is still a common requirement for sections of highly optimized code, low-level debugging on general purpose platforms, and sometimes a basic requirement for aspects of embedded development. However, the key element in this conversation is that there is no one assembler as it's symbolic machine code. Every architecture has its own very unique dialect of assembler, meaning that AMD64 (x86-64), AARCH64 (ARM64), MC68k, etc., are all very different, as dictated by the instruction set architecture (and there are significant differences within generations of common families of ISA's - for example, the copy-pasta'd example of code deletions at 2:26 are 16bit x86 assembler, easily identifiable as such due to the register names not being prefixed with E (32bit i386) or R (AMD64) extensions). I imagine that the mentioned job posting was looking for someone who had enough experience to learn the (what I imagine to be) pretty unique instruction sets of the Voyager's archaic computers, with a knack for careful optimizations. One final note: the CCS and AACS (both derived from the same system architecture) used core memory, while the FDS was the very first (IIRC) computer in spaceflight to use CMOS IC based memory and is of an entirely different architecture from the other two.

[@SpaceKid100]

Just by thinking at how they managed to create Voyager 50 years ago and still works to this day is just amazing and very inspiring for other people in my opinion. Very big applauses to the engineers and programmers who did the machine.

[@alecepting1371]

It was never intended to be operational for this long. But you have to remember that engineering back in those days was overdesigned because there were so many unknowns they were dealing with. Plus the "integrated" circuits they were using were low density, so less susceptible to cosmic rays. And finally, they used core memory (with the wire bit addressing matrix described in the video) which could not be altered by a cosmic ray since these were tiny iron cores. I do remember one situation where one of the bits was stuck at 0 and the engineers couldn't get it to change state. So they picked an instruction to store there that had a zero in that exact location. Problem solved without having to render that memory location unusable!

[@mohamedalsharweni1974]

Hats off to the 3D designer you have in the team. Brilliant! 👏

[@farshaikh1]

Voyager Runs on "Nord VPN" you had me with that 😂

[@primalspace]

Haha glad you enjoyed that one.

[@williammoore3279]

Fascinating content. Old programmers, like myself, who took our first class in Assembly language back in the 1970s and then wrote applications this content is inspiring. We manually wrote our code on special pads (of paper) then used a keypunch machine to place lines of code onto 80 character per column cards, taking batches of cards over to a card reader, had to be fluent in binary, octal, and hex, and had to be able to read through reams of printed core dumps to diagnose errors. Some programmers were able to mentally translate microcode. Our knowledge evolved over the decades to remain relevant with all the new languages and technology but we never forgot what it was like to drop a container of program code cards on the way to the card reader and spend an hour putting them back in order.

[@challacustica9049]

Amazing, simply incredible. I never realized voyager would be updated like this.

[@primalspace]

So glad you found it as interesting as I did! Thanks for watching 🙏

[@scheimong]

5:15 I think by "pseudocode" you meant "subroutine". Pseudocode refers to "code" that is not intended to be run by a computer (and is often non-compliant to any language), but intended to only be read by humans, most often used to explain algorithms.

[@AStoryteller-for-fun]

So just comments

[@lindaj5492]

No ‘built-in obsolescence’ here. Just solid, reliable and efficient engineering and technology. The whole team deserves recognition and thanks from the entire scientific community.

[@MaximumBan]

My KSP gobbled 16Gb on RAM and it's only for the lift off. Voyager flew millions of miles with 7Kb.

[@DanielRojas-kt2tw]

I think sending a Voyager 3 to the inner most planets would be neat. Gathering more data on Mercury and Venus would allow us to learn more about them.

[@tomikun8057]

We already did that Don't you remember the Venus drone landing that melted?

[@ronghe79]

You mean venera ​@@tomikun8057

[@3366larryandrews]

Funny, to us old timers, 70K was a massive amount of memory to use on this spacecraft. A PDP-8 minicomputer could support 4-users running Basic programming support using Terminet terminals and 32K of core memory. Each user having about 4K of memory. I would load 10 words from the PDP-8 front-panel, which would setup the bootstrap papertape reel to load the OS and program into the 32K of core memory. The 32K of core memory with its hand-made magnetwire-wound Toroidal cores, was a beautiful sight of workmanship for many.

[@researchandbuild1751]

I would be waaaaay more interested in how they properly direct a beam of RF to go to Voyager's position and have enough strength at that distance, in the first place.

[@Zreknarf]

they just blast massive amounts of RF in their general direction from california, spain, and australia at the same time, then use the same dishes to listen

[@MitkoNikov]

@@Zreknarf I wonder do they sync the RF signals from multiple antenna arrays across the entire hemisphere, so they overlap with each other - giving a much stronger signal, and how is that done in practice? It seems you have to take in account the curvature of the earth as well. Because, I doubt one local antenna array is capable of delivering such a powerful RF.

[@jokerace8227]

For me it's more that we can receive Voyagers' light bulb wattage worth of radio transmissions from across 15 billion miles, as opposed to our high wattage transmissions sent back out to them.

[@StormGod29]

@@MitkoNikov nah, it is easier than that b/c the earth is flat!

[@Zreknarf]

@MitkoNikov not sure on the specifics, I'd imagine it involves several atomic clocks and a rather low bit rate

[@imRo45_264]

This is one of the most interesting videos I have seen in a while. I always wanted to know about the updates that are sent to the Voyagers. I would like to send the Voyager to Proxima Centauri and its planets. It will be great to know about the chances of Human survival , if possible on one of the planets. Thanks again for these amazing and informative videos.♥

[@primalspace]

Sounds like a great plan for Voyager 3. Thank you for watching and I'm so glad you enjoyed the video. Good luck in the giveaway!

[@PatrickHoodDaniel]

My science fair project in the late '70s was about Voyager 1. I got honorable mention!! This video brings back a lot of memories of that time.

[@primalspace]

Oh wow - I love that!

[@gameinsane8984]

It’s baffling how they got so far with such a small computer it can’t even store a photo 😮

[@kensmith5694]

It is what engineers do when doing science is the goal.

[@sofachrome]

​@@kensmith5694😂😂😂

[@g-r-a-e-m-e-]

they did save the photos - they have onboard tape recorders which save the data and then transit back to earth

[@keesvanoosbree5911]

I would send Voyager 3 to Neptune, since the last spacecraft we sent to visit that planet was Voyager 2, which still has been the only probe to visit that planet.

[@steventaylor8918]

This is truly epic. By the way... I love the way you worked in the NordVPN commercial.

[@primalspace]

Haha thanks so much. Really glad you enjoyed the video!

[@josephconsuegra6420]

I remember programming in Fortran and assembly (IBM BAL). Those were the days that programming was an art and required massive management of resources.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Time to fresh up for Fortran 2018 and COBOL 2023 and maybe your code will be used in the next SPEC CPU benchmark, just like the SPEC CPU2017 uses Fortran, C and C++

[@SammyCola]

I actually asked them about how large of a patch it is, this is what they said: “The patch is quite small; only about 16 instructions. All signals take ~18 hours to get to V2 and over 20 to get to V1 but that's due to their distance not the size of the patch.” ~Calla Cofield

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Reminds me of situations where IPoAC is the fastest transmission. Like in 2009 when a pidgeon transmitted 4 GB of data at 2.27 mbps, while a simultaneous transfer over ADSL was only at 4% completion.

[@joszandstra2044]

It is truly amazing that it still is possible to update computers on that distance sending the data at 16 bits per second. Can hardly imagine that, nowadays used to gigabit speeds. Also using only 70 kB of memory for keeping the Voyager operative. I used to have a Sinclair ZX 80 with 1 kB many years ago where nowaday GB or TB are standard. Just amazing

[@nkronert]

I'm assuming the Fortran part of the software was part of the build proces, not running on the craft itself.

[@vamsi3]

It still amazes me that Voyager missions are one of the farthest human endeavors yet in space! Looking at all the amazing pictures of planets I have seen from Voyager missions, I would send the Voyager 3 to Proxima Centauri b. We can only wonder what other solar systems look like. And, thanks for your videos and reminding us the wonders of space!

[@johnfranchina84]

I did my electrical/electronics engineering 4 year degree graduating in 1980. Learnt Fortran and programmed Motorola 6802 microprocessors using machine code without assemblers. I have been privileged to live and observe the huge advances in space exploration and all things in digital technology. Of all spacecraft, love the Voyagers the most.

[@sunoj]

"woud like to send voyager to the nearest black hole" as a product designer, i have a great respect to voyager team how they have built a robust system at their time

[@barbierthomas8322]

We've mentionned the voyager II antenna system in my physic class last week. The power of reception is in megawatt which is absolutely fantastic but is expected when looking at the weakness of the signal power received from voyager II.

[@Heracles_FE]

I think what you meant to say was , we ran the numbers in our physics class and died laughing , because it is impossible to receive the signal that a 20 watt transmitter would send from ten miles up . Stop believing authority because they are authority.

[@ernieschatz3783]

Okay 😂​@@Heracles_FE

[@barbierthomas8322]

@@Heracles_FE you're a genius

[@rajkr7j]

voyager always stuns me with the fact that it is still sending signal, I have great respect to its team. If there will be an voyager 3 and would love to send it solar system exploration as the old voyagers with more advanced hardwares, and be designed to travell faster and even further, and even have a dedicated interstellar mission to perform science to learn more about it.

[@Bowske]

Here we are, sending software updates and fixes 15bn miles through space on 50yr old hardware and IT is telling me they can’t fix my outlook from crashing.

[@rafvkk]

As a computer engineering student, this video was a blast to watch. And I would send Voyager 3 to Betelgeuse, maybe we could get data on supernova in the future!

[@primalspace]

Love to hear that! Thanks so much for watching, so glad you enjoyed it, and good luck in the giveaway!

[@ruminmusic]

Its incredible what the early pioneers have accomplished, building hardware and software that has stood for half a century in the harshest environment and still going strong.

[@girikvarma8066]

I know it’s just a fun question but i really thought about where i would send voyager 3 if launched today, obviously some interesting places to check out would be the stellar nurseries, the quantum quasar zone or the hyperspace junction, but respecting voyager 1&2 as they were sent to study planets as their primary objective we could also send the voyager 3 to check out specific exoplanets such as the Proxima Centauri b (i did some math and with some advanced propulsion systems if voyager 3 can reach the speeds of 160000+ kmph then it would take around 25-35 years to get to the planet, just like we are reaping the benefits of voyager 1&2’s findings today, our future generations will advance with our efforts of voyager 3 today). Obviously all hypothetical and would require some major tech breakthroughs, still interesting.

[@girikvarma8066]

Just to mention, proxima centauri b is possibly the closest exoplanet that lies in the habitable zone of proxima centauri and might support or already have life

[@adg_himself]

I would send a third Voyager mission to further explore some of Saturn's moons like Iapetus and Encleadus. Ultimately sending it out into the universe with newer more powerful instruments would be awesome, perhaps allowing it to function longer than the first 2.

[@TGSankar]

I don't have any official degree in science or computer language but I am a enthusiastic about science, love to know new things and gather knowledge. This video really makes me amazed about how old technologies still working today even form billions of miles❤️

[@Yaslovesvenus]

Amazing video and I can’t believe I won the giveaway thank you for the amazing work you put into the videos!! And I would send the voyager 3 to outer layers of Milky Way galaxy

[@primalspace]

Congratulations and thank you so much for watching! I'm so glad that you enjoy my content. It really means a lot.

[@Mrcaton..]

Congrats yasmineasadiasl767

[@The-python-guy]

I love this video. I do software development and am an avid rocket engineer (from my bedroom) so All of this is so cool. I always loved voyager because of the mission lifetime, and that it's in deep space and is the first thing the aliens are going to see (if there real.)

[@0xEmmy]

70 kB isn't *that* small. It's an entirely respectable amount of memory for an embedded processor (like a spacecraft control system), even by modern standards. I (and anyone who's dabbled in hobby electronics) have written code for MCU's with vastly less memory, without incident. The ATMega328, probably the most famous hobbyist-grade microcontroller (since it's found on the most common Arduino models), has half Voyager's amount of memory. Voyager didn't have only 70kB because that's all anyone could do. It only had 70 kB because there wasn't much point in adding more. Operating a spacecraft (or most machinery) is genuinely very computationally easy, compared to the stuff traditional computers do.

[@NichtDu]

6:30 Pretty sure this is actually incorrect because doing an update like this is very very dangerous. Don't wanna go into detail with the explanation but computers have an instruction pointer and instructions. Kinda like this 1. Save eax to memory position 123 2. Mv mem pos 344 to eax 3. Increment eax by one Now imagine the computer is currently at task 2 and the instruction pointer also points to it. For NASA there's no way to predict which statement the Computer is. The computer is just way too fast and indeterministic to predict that. Now imagine if the software update changes these instructions. After finishing the update you suddenly don't increment eax anymore because you shifted your code 2 to the right. Now you save eax to memory position 123 which would be completely incorrect and could override a value crucial to the spaceships operation

[@PavitraGolchha]

I believe that they are smart enough to reset the computer after an update

[@NichtDu]

@@PavitraGolchha according to the video there is no "after the update" everything is written directly to the memory. + you can't restart something without persistent memory

[@nimeshjain5523]

It's impressive that technology had Advanced so far that now we can send Data to Billion s of kilometres.

[@primalspace]

Absolutely!

[@kisspeteristvan]

and we were amazed when we started to get updates over the net , this thing was many years ahead

[@colombianoo6535]

If a voyager 3 was launched, it would be interesting to see all the modern components it would have, as well as being able to launch it at a higher speed (like 20% of the speed of light) to reach proxima centauri for example.

[@Senph42]

just don't let any former apple engineers near it during the development phase

[@Fulf16]

For voyager 3 I would send it out to alpha centuri, I would take a fair amount of time, but with modern cameras and sensors I would love to see new pale blue dot photos from the craft.

[@TheBcoolGuy]

Imagine getting pictures from another solar system! Actual photos from proportionally close to an alien sun! Even better is if they could get pictures from the surface of an alien planet.

[@TheRealNikos]

It is truly phenomenal how it still operates after so many years. I hope it continues functioning even longer