NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 Mission Alive

Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by basementcat on Thursday September 12, 2024 @04:01AM (#41518568)

In short, the Voyager spacecraft were designed (after considerable design and operational experience from Mariner and Pioneer spacecraft) to be able to operate for a long time largely automatically without too much hand-holding. All major systems are multiply redundant and may be remotely turned on and off. While there has been personnel turnover on the program, it has not been of a magnitude to jeopardize program continuation. Finally, program management has been media savvy and well politically connected ensuring that operations are still funded. (Contrast with other missions such as Magellan to Venus which was deorbited while it still had propellant reserve leaving some portions of the planet unmapped)

JPL has (or had?) a "retiree badge" program that permitted retired staff to continue to access their office. Many programs benefited from highly knowledgeable personnel essentially continuing to report to the office every day without pay (not being paid comes with the luxury of not having to worry about being laid off if your charge accounts don’t have enough funds!) It was an absolute privilege to learn from these people.

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by SSLy on Thursday September 12, 2024 @04:55AM (#41518874)

So, culture preservation is important for success of highly technical endeavours. Don't tell it to your run of the mill MBA.

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by basementcat on Thursday September 12, 2024 @05:11AM (#41518957)

I think it is inevitable that organizational "culture" changes. The tricky part is figuring out exactly what parts need change and what parts don’t.

For example JPL used to have beauty pageants ("Miss Guided Missile"). More recently, management appears to be trying to adopt policies and procedures from some venture funded commercial space companies. It is not clear how helpful these efforts will be given that these organizations are in fundamentally different businesses.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/slice-of-history-70th-annive...

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by biofox on Thursday September 12, 2024 @06:14AM (#41519246)

As a male scientist and engineer, I am also on antidepressants :(

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by malfist on Thursday September 12, 2024 @08:52AM (#41520310)

I don't think having beauty pageants keep women from being depressed

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by ozim on Thursday September 12, 2024 @09:55AM (#41521023)

Pageants were far and between and everyone knew participants had to prepare and they are not walking like fit/dressed that day to day.

Nowadays we have eternal pageant on the internet and lots faking it like they live/sleep/shower in full makeup and perfect fit.

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by mistermann on Thursday September 12, 2024 @09:05AM (#41520454)

I wonder what the fact of the matter is. It'd be rather hilarious if Humans have been shooting ourselves in the feet for the last few decades with many of our social engineering initiatives. And the reproduction rates chart is ugly.

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by darby_nine on Thursday September 12, 2024 @09:22AM (#41520635)

Who wants to bring a baby onto a sinking ship?

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by Loudergood on Thursday September 12, 2024 @10:05AM (#41521130)

Exactly, it's simple economics.

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by TimeBearingDown on Thursday September 12, 2024 @05:29PM (#41525790)

Modern information access seems to have led to the sinking ship feeling, across many of the most prosperous countries, and so effectively that world wars, deadlier pandemics, and thermonuclear brinkmanship can scarcely compare.

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by squigz on Thursday September 12, 2024 @10:16PM (#41527493)

I wonder what the fact of that matter is. Are reproduction rates dropping because women aren't as pressured to bear children due to those silly 'social engineering initiatives'?

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by mistermann on Tuesday September 17, 2024 @03:18PM (#41571586)

I'd bet that's part of it, so what percentage it is would be impossible to determine, which itself may be impossible to realize, for some.

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by Loudergood on Thursday September 12, 2024 @10:05AM (#41521133)

What a weird thing to say.

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by fnord77 on Thursday September 12, 2024 @01:52PM (#41523566)

what a weird society we've evolved into

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by ozim on Thursday September 12, 2024 @07:18AM (#41519546)

Run off the mill MBAs are not allowed anywhere near as important as Voyager.

All the web apps, run of the mill devs are implementing are nowhere near as important as voyager.

I think we are fine ;)

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by darby_nine on Thursday September 12, 2024 @09:20AM (#41520605)

It also helps that JPL is a public good and not a wealth-extraction machine

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by me_me_me on Thursday September 12, 2024 @10:25AM (#41521372)

but if someone is paid $0 it must mean they are worthless, surely the excel file doesnt lie

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by efitz on Thursday September 12, 2024 @10:30AM (#41521448)

No, you need to think like an MBA.

It means that they are the most valuable employees, because their productivity per dollar is infinite.

It also means that when you sort all the (non-executive, of course!) employees by total comp in preparation for layoffs to make the budget look better, they are at the bottom of the list.

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by me_me_me on Thursday September 12, 2024 @10:42AM (#41521560)

oh yes, you are absolutely right :D

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by appendix-rock on Thursday September 12, 2024 @08:11PM (#41526973)

I guarantee you that a run of the mill MBA program will say something about institutional knowledge being important. You’re needlessly and unjustifiably finding an excuse to dunk on something that you know people here dislike, despite it having very little to do with the actual topic. Which…fine. But you’re also so keen to do it that you aren’t even correct. Please stop projecting every gripe you have with your boss onto this mythical “evil MBA”.

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by tecleandor on Thursday September 12, 2024 @06:57AM (#41519418)

Yeah! Being almost 50 years old it's not like people is not working there anymore but that probably a bunch of people in the original project has already died!

Great forward thinking

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by mistermann on Thursday September 12, 2024 @09:09AM (#41520502)

Any idea how many people took advantage of the retiree badge program, or any individual people who continued to put in substantial hours?

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by wildzzz on Thursday September 12, 2024 @01:11PM (#41523102)

We do something similar at my job for the greybeards that were very influential on our current projects. They "retire" but are retained as a very part time employee that only get paid if we need to bring them in for a day or two to help answer some questions. The managers love it because they don't need to find work for this person, pay for any benefits, or need to get approvals to pay them like contractors. As long as we keep doing relevant work to their expertise, they will continue being retained. There is a limit for how many hours they can put in because these people are incredibly expensive as they usually retire at the top engineer level and retain the equivalent hourly wage for that position.

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Re:NASA Pulls Off Delicate Thruster Swap, Keeping Voyager 1 ... by appendix-rock on Thursday September 12, 2024 @08:14PM (#41526983)

Paying someone as sporadically as you would a contractor but they’re only getting their usual hourly wage? Doesn’t sound expensive to me. Sounds like a ridiculously good deal for the employer.

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