Voyager 1 phones home with transmitter that hasn't been used since 1981

Re:Voyager 1 phones home with transmitter that hasn't been u... by fph on Thursday October 31, 2024 @12:40PM (#42008566)

This suggests a question: how does the Voyager handle authenticating commands? Whatever crypto they had in 1977 is surely completely broken now. Security by obscurity? Or can anyone with a large enough antenna send commands to it?

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Re:Voyager 1 phones home with transmitter that hasn't been u... by xyx0826 on Thursday October 31, 2024 @02:48PM (#42010128)

The Voyagers’ protocol use no encryption and the specification appears to be public. I’ve linked a PDF of what appears to contain the protocol description below. So anyone with a *large enough* antenna can talk to it. It just happens to be that the “anyone” on earth really is just NASA and its Deep Space Network.

https://descanso.jpl.nasa.gov/DPSummary/Descanso4--Voyager_n...

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Re:Voyager 1 phones home with transmitter that hasn't been u... by alexander2002 on Thursday October 31, 2024 @02:01PM (#42009541)

I need to know the answer to this also!

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