Debunking the myth: Voyager spacecraft software and the aging engineer problem
By
redbell
Slow-proofed and worth the wait. Worth its weight in flour.
Summary
The article fact-checks the popular narrative that NASA's Voyager spacecraft run on software written in a programming language that nobody alive can read, maintained only by engineers in their 80s. It clarifies that while Voyager does use assembly language for its purpose-built General Electric computers, the situation is more nuanced than the viral headline suggests. The article examines the actual technical reality of the Voyager mission's software maintenance challenges.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledNASA still runs the Voyagers on software written in a programming language nobody alive can read, kept going by a handful of engineers all in their eighties, with no one queued up to replace them.
In our reading of the record, parts of this are accurate. Parts are not. The underlying problem is real, and more specific than the headline suggests.
The Voyager onboard computers run assembly language written for purpose-built General Electric computers.
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