Deep space network now...

[BUTCH1]

You can see what part of the DSN is tracking what probe in real-time.Currently Goldstone is tracking Voyager 1 with a total trip time of 1.6 DAYS..https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

 

[esquared]

Thanks for the link.

 

[Thebobo]

You can see what part of the DSN is tracking what probe in real-time.Currently Goldstone is tracking Voyager 1 with a total trip time of 1.6 DAYS..https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

Yea pretty cool checking out all NASA's interplanetary missions as well.

 

[Thebobo]

Article in the times about the Voyagers engineers, it's been a entire career for some of them.

The Loyal Engineers Steering NASA’s Voyager Probes Across the Universe

As the Voyager mission is winding down, so, too, are the careers of the aging explorers who expanded our sense of home in the galaxy.

 

[BoomerD]

Veeger!

 

[Red Squirrel]

This stuff is fascinating, when you consider how far some of those probes are, such as Voyager. The noise to signal ratio is through the roof and the sophistication that goes into decoding the data is quite something, let alone, being able to actually aim the dish exactly at the probe. A few fractions of a degree and you're way off track.

Some cool videos on this subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzRP1qdwPKw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rCrfQUcXDI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP_hleOXTaU

 

[William Gaatjes]

Nice. Thank you.

 

[BUTCH1]

This stuff is fascinating, when you consider how far some of those probes are, such as Voyager. The noise to signal ratio is through the roof and the sophistication that goes into decoding the data is quite something, let alone, being able to actually aim the dish exactly at the probe. A few fractions of a degree and you're way off track.

Some cool videos on this subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzRP1qdwPKw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rCrfQUcXDI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP_hleOXTaU

Yea, I've seen EEV's vids on this and if you can understand what they are talking about, it truly is fascinating.That 70 meter dish is just NUTS!, they consider -159db a "good" signal. They should get another 5-6 years before the Voyager probes finally go silent, to think these were designed in the mid-'70's is truly mind boggling. Shoot, I remember when, (in the mid-late '80's) they gave us our first close up views of the outer planets, even Hubble can't match the bang for the buck they have delivered.

 

[BUTCH1]

Nice. Thank you.

More than welcome, I keep it open on a tab, it's cool to stop by and see what station's doing what. The 70 meter dish in Australia is capable of a staggering 750Kw output power!. They can't rig up big enough line to use juice from the grid so they have their own huge generator-set's set up for when the need large amount's of power.

 

[William Gaatjes]

More than welcome, I keep it open on a tab, it's cool to stop by and see what station's doing what. The 70 meter dish in Australia is capable of a staggering 750Kw output power!. They can't rig up big enough line to use juice from the grid so they have their own huge generator-set's set up for when the need large amount's of power.

Amazing ! And that is what the transceiver in the station consumes or is it actually capable of transmitting that much power ?

 

[BD231]

 

[Thebobo]

More than welcome, I keep it open on a tab, it's cool to stop by and see what station's doing what. The 70 meter dish in Australia is capable of a staggering 750Kw output power!. They can't rig up big enough line to use juice from the grid so they have their own huge generator-set's set up for when the need large amount's of power.

Is that the same dish as the one in the movie The Dish? Good movie btw.

 

[BUTCH1]

Amazing ! And that is what the transceiver in the station consumes or is it actually capable of transmitting that much power ?

That is it's maximum output power, it's not needed that often though. The UPS/generator's setup can deliver in the 3-4 megawatt range for up to 3-4 minutes sustained.

 

[BUTCH1]

Is that the same dish as the one in the movie The Dish? Good movie btw.

No, that was The Parkes Observatory, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkes_Observatory