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Pioneer 10 Still Running After 30 years

Posted by michael on from the overdue-for-tuneup-and-brake-job dept.

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."

12 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by Maeryk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Okay.. I read the article. It was an interesting mix between pat on the back science and good old "Hey, aint NASA GREAT!" enthusiasm.

    My question.. which I did not see answered, are where ARE they right now? I know they havent cleared the SS yet, but where exactly are they? ARe we going to get pictures Pluto and Neptune back? (Which would be GREAT.. and would solve that long running question of whether Pluto is even a planet, a bit asteroid, or a half a planet that got pulled into the gravity well here).

    Does it even have the transmitting power to send real data back anymore? or simply to weakly croak "I am here".

    Maeryk

    --
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    1. Re:To old to rock n roll... to young to die? by jeff_bond · · Score: 2, Interesting
      linderdm wrote:

      however it is slowing down by some "mysterious" force

      I read in this weeks New Scientist mag about this. Apparently it is 400,000km nearer to earth than it should be. I believe the doppler shift of its return signal is used to calculate its speed, and hence its distance

      This shortfall in distance might suggest that gravity doesn't obey the inverse square law at large distances. If this is true, it might be a reason for the anomalous motions of galaxies, and the speculation about the existance of dark matter.

      Jeff

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      stty erase ^H
  2. Design for Reliability by nuggz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Failure is an interesting field of study.
    Lets say after 5 years you want a 99% chance it still works, or 1% chance of failure. If look at it after 10, or 20 years you'd only have a 2% or 3% chance of failure.

    Basically if something is VERY reliable in the short term, it will have a LONG life before you would expect it to wear out.

    Weibull statistics are pretty good for predicting life, you can read up on it. In many industries it is the accepted standard approach to predict life.

    1. Re:Design for Reliability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Yes, but that only works for things with a pure rate of failure that does not increase.

      Things like moving parts might have almost 0% chance of failure during the first year, but a guaranteed failure after 10 years, due to normal wear.

  3. Quality Control by Myco · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I read an article a while back on NASA's mission failures from the last few years (Sci Am maybe? I dunno). One interviewee working there affirmed that quality control was a big area for cutbacks, and in the light of the failures that have been happening they're seeking to spend a lot more time and money on quality control.

    Makes sense to me, if they want to reproduce the successes of the past. "Faster, better, cheaper" is a myth -- you can't just spout a slogan and get everything you want. If you want better stuff, you've got to be prepared to spend more time or money on it, period. It's like the old programmer's motto: "Fast, cheap, good. Pick two."

    Really, there are a lot of analogies between how NASA works and how software dev houses work, and perhaps the two could learn from each other's successes. Code reviews, as was discussed not so long ago on Slashdot, are by far the most cost-effective use of developers' time because of the enormous amount of bugs they prevent. But it's also a very frequently skimped-on area, due to penny pinching and programmer hubris (nothing wrong with MY code!).

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    1. Re:Quality Control by gerf · · Score: 1, Interesting

      yes, Faster Better Cheaper. But, using this idea, to explore the Heliosphere, and beyond, we'd be more efficient to send a spacecraft made specifically for that purpose, instead of byproducts of other missions.

      By this though, we could send a craft out with more fuel, instrumentation meant for that particular mission, and it would probably go faster, given that would be a focus of the mission.

      would you rather have 20 craft study 20 planets and astroids and meteors in detail, with specially tailored craft, or 5 probes studying 4 planets/'roids each, but not getting such a tailored investigation. personally, i don't think weather instruments would do much good when studying haley's comet...

  4. Re:Of course they won't by swb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's like comparing dispisable watches to a Rolex.

    I have a Timex Marathon 100 digital watch I bought in 1986 for $35. I have worn it daily since then and have only changed the battery 4 times and it works fine.

    Someone I know who has a Rolex paid over $2000 for it and they are "supposed" to send it in for cleaning every 3-5 years (which runs about $500).

    What was that about disposable watches and Rolexes?

  5. Mysterious force.... by Mation · · Score: 4, Interesting
    This article from The Telegraph in February has a bit more detail on the path Pioneer 10 has taken, and also on the 'mysterious force' pulling it back toward Earth...

    What I want to know is, why does the plaque showing humanity in all its naked glory have the man waving hello? How are aliens supposed to interpret this? For all we know that could be the intergalactic symbol for 'come and eat my species, we taste really yummy'...

    Mation

  6. Re:I believe we've /.ed SciAm. by Gordonjcp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You probably could have a Mach number in space. Consider this: The speed of sound through a medium is dependant on the density of that medium. Now space isn't a perfectly hard vacuum - there's a tiny amount of very, very thin gas. So, if you work out the density of the gas in the heliopause, you can work out the speed of sound.
    Since vibration travels slowly through less dense media, I suspect the speed of sound in space would be very slow indeed. And you'd need a really loud sound...

  7. & Still producing 'new science' by Martin+S. · · Score: 4, Interesting


    And according to this week's New Scientist are still producing 'new science'.

    Apparently they are slowing down relative to the sun, due to the action of some unknown force, which may be linked to dark matter.

    Synopsis here:
    http://www.newscientist.com/news/search/dosearch .j sp?advsearch=pioneer+&searchtype=all&x=18& y=1

    Though you'll have to buy an issue or wait a week to view the full text.

  8. Re:Brains by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Pioneer used the Intel 4004; Voyager, Galileo, and Viking used RCA's COSMAC CDP1802.

    The 1802 was a popular choice for many satellite applications (including telecommunications and GPS) because of its early use of low power CMOS technology and radiation tolerance. It was also a fully static part, allowing the clock frequency to drop down to nothing for further power savings.

    The chip still has a fan club of sorts, and some old 1802 microcomputers sell at more than 3x their original price on eBay.

  9. Re:nuclear reactors? by superdan2k · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't know if there was any bitching and moaning re: Voyager 1 and 2, but I do know that the RTB (radiothermal battery) is largely the same in Galileo as it was in the Voyagers and Apollos. Hell, the Apollo 13 LEM is sitting at the bottom of the Pacific with a RTB in it, and it hasn't leaked yet. They're durable. I don't know why the environmentalists are so twitchy.

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