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The First Interstellar Software Update - The Insane Hack That Saved Voyager 1
Scott Manley
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- Presented by Scott Manley
Beginner. No background in the topic needed.
868K views1 year ago2 recommendations
History and cultureSystems programmingHistory of computingEmbedded systemsDebugging
Scott Manley explains how NASA engineers diagnosed a memory corruption issue on Voyager 1 and successfully patched its fifty-year-old computer.
In November 2023 Voyager 1 stopped communicating with Earth, the telemetry it was sending contained no information, but engineers working on the spacecraft could tell it was still listening. It would take months of experimenting to understand the problem and develop a fix using techniques that had never been employed before and designing software for a 50 year old computer using pen and paper. Based on presentations by Bruce Waggoner and David Cummings - check out the originals: youtu.be/7YgebbAqVmY youtu.be/YcUycQoz0zg Follow me on Twitter for more updates: twitter.com/DJSnM I have a discord server where I regularly turn up: discord.gg/zStmKbM If you really like what I do you can support me directly through Patreon patreon.com/scottmanleyWhy it's here
2 people recommend thisWhat people say. Recommended as a fascinating look into extreme remote debugging and firmware patching on a spacecraft billions of miles away.
u/Mango-143in r/embedded • Recommends
On “Favorite firmware hack you've written to work around hardware limitations”
The ultimate firmware hack is Voyager's software update.
Scott Manley's video: link to this video