That Support Case From Space

Just listened to the Hard Fork episode with guest Todd Barber about fixing Voyager 1’s computer. Todd describes debugging a computer problem 15 billion miles away: NASAs Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth. The fact that a computer is still running after 47 years is the most amazing part of the story. I can’t even read my Zip drives from 20 years ago.

The story reminded me also of a support case we received from Space. Our software was part of an experiment that was run from the International Space Station. An astronaut was controlling a rover at Nasa Ames in Mountain View, CA. The experiment was a prelude to controlling a rover on the moon or on Mars.

However, something went awry with the communications. The astronaut took a screenshot of the error and sent it to Mission Control, who forward it to us. We got our first, and only, support case from Space.

The good news is that a reboot saved the experiment. Can you turn it off and on again is the best debugging method out there, isn’t it?

May 1, 2024


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