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Pioneer 10 Still Running After 30 years
evilempireinc writes "According to this article in Scientific American, Pioneer 10 is still functioning 30 years after it was launched in 1972, and is still sending back scientific data. The article mentions that two other old space craft, Voyager, and IMP-8 are still functioning after over 20 years as well due to overbuilt construction and redundant systems. Can't help but wonder if the present generation of "faster, better, cheaper" probes will ever live this long though."
Most of these cheap probes are meant for suicide missions. It's hard to keep sending back info when you're slamming into a hellish atmosphere, or weathering the sandstorms of Mars.
It's like comparing dispisable watches to a Rolex.
This is probably the best argument I've heard for feature bloat in a long, long time. Overspending can be a good thing, kids.
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But you'll be glowing in a night: it uses radioactive power sources :)
Older technology works and is very rohbust wheras newer more fancy technology has a shorter lifespan and just breaks when a granny within a 1 mile radius farts.
As an example, look at mobile devices, older devices can take a huge beating, whereas newer devices just disentigrate on impact.
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I'm sure it's quite a point of pride for the engineers who worked on those marvelous spacecraft... it would be for me. Bravo. That said, this is a story for two reasons. First and foremost, it is cute... a valient satellite greatly exceeds its creators expectations. Second, it reflects how impressive NASA used to be. Now I don't doubt that there are many very smart people working there nowadays, but if nothing else, I can't imagine there being the enthusiam there once was and that inevitably effects the quality of work. I really do want NASA to continue, provided that it pushes boundries. Keeping a satellite alive and kicking is neat, but it, or more satellites for a different purpose in earth orbit should not be all NASA has to offer.
It just makes me wonder how well we'd be getting on in space if the planet stopped buying weapons and built spacecraft instead. When Pioneer and Voyager were built NASA had a much larger percentage of the US budget...
The Pioneers and Voyagers are the only man-made objects to have left our solar system. Even though the spacecraft are sending little more information than "I'm not dead yet," physicists can use those signals to determine where the influence of the solar wind (the heliopause) ends, and whether or not gravity behaves as expected at large distances. (See, for example, this article.)
Or maybe because all the shitty stuff from way-back-then has already broken, and only the quality stuff remains. That way we only have evidence of old quality stuff. That doesn't mean only quality stuff was made.
...correct. Nobody gives a rat's ass about the quality of their work anymore.
Pioneer 10 is powered by a device called an "RTG", which stands for "radioisotopic thermoelectric generator." A chunk of Plutonium-238 heats up one side of a thermocouple, generating electricity. Since the Pu-238 has a half-life of 88 years, the power supplied by the RTG decreases over decades. At this point, there is barely enough power to run one or two particle detectors or send back a message to Earth.
For a detailed history of RTGs, check out this Miamisburg Environmental Management Project report.
Current solar panels are pretty much useless beyond the orbit of Jupiter.
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I remind my mother of this line of reasoning every time she asserts that everything made back in the old days was high quality, and everything made now is flimsy. It just never seems to sink in, though.
I'd argue that most things made today are more durable. A lot of old cheap stuff was made out of cardboard, wood, or rustable metal, and it eventually disintegrated without leaving a trace. Today, most cheap stuff is made of plastic. Even if it breaks, you'll still have the faded, ungluable pieces to look at many decades from now.
No!
you don't want the probes to survive longer than planned. You want them to be like F1 race cars: ideally, the engine should explode _just_ over the finish line. Only then have you maximized tolerances. However, due to uncertainty, you engineer in a margin of safety.
A 30 year margin doesn't indicate good design, it indicates a MASSIVE misjudgemnt of the tolerances involved. Fine. these were the first probes built, so noone knew the margins needed.
It's misguided to continue insisting on such ludicrous margins. If you want a long-living probe, then that becomes a design consideration, but this _moves the finish line_, rather than increasing the margins necessary.
The long life of the probes is indicative of good engineers making conservative choices in the face of uncertainty rather than good design.
aside:
the only reason why fast-cheap-cheerful isn't a handsdown winner is that each probe's cost is augmented by the cost of launch, which makes even a free probe an expensive mission. Thus, there is economic gain from a bit of overengineering, as the cost of the hardware isn't really a large part of the total cost, so any bonus functionality you get is worth the price, to a limit.
The real loss if the ISS is shut down will be that they could have built a rail-gun to fire largely unpowered probes on long-term missions for basically free.
"The real loss if the ISS is shut down will be that they could have built a rail-gun to fire largely unpowered probes on long-term missions for basically free."
Well, except they need to get materials there somehow.
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Are you out of your mind?
ISS is in low earth orbit. There certainly aren't a lot of "big space rocks" nearby that can be easily gotten to. If there were, you'd be hearing about it on CNN. Even getting a probe (NEAR) to one was a pretty big achievement in itself, and nothing compared to mining and refining the materials you would find there. Last time I checked, even a 1970's era probe like Pioneer wasn't made out of brick and gravel.
You'd be a lot more credible if you talked about grabbing already-launched satellites out of their orbits and recycling them. Which is not very credible.