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A comment on NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth. Parent comment

Re:NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to E... by xattt on Monday April 22, 2024 @09:44PM (#40127589)
> the cameras were turned off to save power and memory

Since it’s powered by an RTG, how does the power get “used up”? I assume that this refers to the available power budget at a given moment versus some sort of expendable power reserve.

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Re:NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to E... by Yossarrian22 on Monday April 22, 2024 @11:18PM (#40128089)
Probably a physical relay to deal with parasitic power draw
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Re:NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to E... by xcv123 on Tuesday April 23, 2024 @12:48AM (#40128612)
Yes the power budget is decreasing as the generator output decreases over time.
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Re:NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to E... by 8bitsrule on Tuesday April 23, 2024 @03:07AM (#40129339)
It's the first question at the top of that ^ FAQ page. One of their comments is : "Mission managers removed the software from both spacecraft that controls the camera." Makes me wonder if that unused RAM came in handy lately!
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Re:NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to E... by wkat4242 on Tuesday April 23, 2024 @06:09PM (#40137951)
It's radioactive so the half-life has a serious effect. Its half-life is 87 years so it's not even used up one. I guess it wasn't really very overdimensioned. But it wasn't meant to last this long.
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