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A comment on The ancient technology keeping space missions alive. Parent comment

Re:The ancient technology keeping space missions alive by hilbert42 on Friday August 18, 2023 @07:23PM (#37183444)
Do we know the reason? Heater/cathode failure or HV supply would be likely reasons, or is there now insufficient power from the Pu source to run it?

(The HV supply on a vidicons is usually about 700V—that's high enough to be quite stressful on P/S components.)

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Re:The ancient technology keeping space missions alive by jgalt212 on Friday August 18, 2023 @08:43PM (#37184163)
Yes, to save power. But there's nothing to photograph out there.
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Re:The ancient technology keeping space missions alive by hilbert42 on Friday August 18, 2023 @09:48PM (#37184639)
Makes sense, nice to know it wasn't due to failure.
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Re:The ancient technology keeping space missions alive by jgalt212 on Friday August 18, 2023 @11:09PM (#37185092)
maybe not.

https://buy.hpe.com/us/en/compute/apollo-systems/apollo-80-s...

502 Bad Gateway

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Re:The ancient technology keeping space missions alive by 3pac on Saturday August 19, 2023 @03:33PM (#37192276)
There is a heater for the vidicon which had to be shut off due to power budget. This heater had been on since launch. After being switched off, turning on this heater back on, or the vidicon's cathode filament (itself a separate heater) would have cracked the tube due to the cold of space.
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