Voyager-1 :What Computer System It Has That is Still Running Strong?
Voyager-1 has been running non-stop for the last 50 years while traveling at 10 km/sec in space and still going strong, while I have to throw away my 5-year-old iPhones & laptops because they can’t handle new software?
So Voyager-1, which is over 20 billion miles away (almost 1 light day), is back online after debugging the code and receiving a software update. This made me really curious as to what computer architecture it has which has survived the test of time & space (quite literally)!
So Voyager-1 does not “really” have a computer, in the sense that it does not have an operating system or RAM or a microprocessor. It was built in the 60s before any of this was invented and used CMOS-based microcontroller chips from Texas Instruments. Overall, it has a 16-bit processor and a MASSIVE memory of 70 KILOBYTES. That is smaller memory than a thumbnail of a phone image today, but it was enough to send images through which we discovered Jupiter has rings and much more. The memory is stored using copper wire circuits with magnetized fields (a precursor to our magnetic disk) which can retain bytes even after losing power.
The computer system has 3 computers, one master to control the others and 1 each for flight location & telemetry data from sensors. Each has a backup so the architecture has replicated code. It is controlled by Assembly Language and FORTRAN which was developed by IBM in the 1950s. And yes, it is still working great here. The system keeps running unless it is interrupted.
There is some pseudocode that tells it to enter debug mode. After working non-stop for 50 years (which should be a record for a single computer), maybe due to cosmic rays, one chip was damaged, so they pushed code to another chip and rewrote part of the code. I think it may be a full BIOS update. Computer runs on tiny electrical power generated through Plutonium radioisotope, which will run out sometime next year.
If there is alien life out there, Voyager-1 is most likely the first thing from humans they will meet. Even when power runs out, it can keep going for another 1 billion years. To help aliens, it has our location in the universe, a golden record with some Mozart and voices from planet Earth. Traveling beyond our solar system with such a tiny computer system is an amazing feat in itself. That makes me think, why so many old phones and laptops can’t be repurposed. The hardware is perfectly good if Apple, and Microsoft allows unlocking.
Anyway, I wonder what aliens will think when they discover it. Will they think of tech as primitive or a masterclass of long-lasting purpose-built computer architecture?
The value is often not in the greatest and latest in tech but in what works best for your problems. Voyager-1 discovered new things for us and took iconic images telling us we are just a pale blue dot when seen from the edge of the solar system.
—
Follow ‘Towards Generative AI’ (https://lnkd.in/eRVBRXkH) for latest in AI.
==============
All Images Credit to NASA.
