The Making of the Voyager Golden Record
The following is a listing of sounds electronically placed onboard the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft.
The following is a partial listing of pictures electronically placed on the golden records which are carried onboard the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft.
NASA officials said Tuesday that they are seriously considering sending the full-scale engineering model of the Perseverance rover, which is currently housed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, to the Moon to expedite their efforts to explore the south pole region.
The car-sized rover nicknamed “Promise,” which serves as a testbed for Perseverance and was not otherwise planned for a launch, would land equipped with a multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG) to power it across difficult terrain and through the lunar night. //
NASA has an MMRTG available, with a supply of Plutonium-238 that is just decaying away. It is likely the rover, with a mass of about 1 ton, would need to be delivered by Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander or SpaceX’s Starship due to its size. //
Over the years, Promise has served as a test bed for problems that Perseverance might encounter on Mars. Commands are often tested on this vehicle in the “Mars yard” at the California laboratory before similar commands are sent to the rover on the surface of Mars. It has also helped ensure Perseverance can safely traverse various areas on Mars.
Perseverance launched to Mars in July 2020, and its predecessor, the similarly sized Curiosity rover, launched to the red planet in November 2011. //
Curiosus Novitius Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
2y
105
semyorka said:
To be clear, there is no pre-existing "Promise" rover. "PROMISE" stands for "Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration"
At least it wasn't Prototype Repurposed from Old Mars Inventory for Secondhand Expeditions. //
brokescientist Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
7y
135
I was just at JPL last week and they have also recently dusted off ATHLETE (All-Terrain Hex-Limbed Extra-Terrestrial Explorer). After over a decade in storage they were surprised everything seemed to be operational. Having the test bed is likely important, but actually using hardware and working to deploy long shelved ideas is really cool, and likely much more exciting for the engineers.
On Wednesday, NASA’s Office of the Inspector General prepared a memorandum on the elements of the Artemis Program that NASA was canceling as its focus shifted to the Moon’s surface. These were:
Exploration Upper Stage, an upgrade for the Space Launch System rocket
Universal Stage Adapter, which links the Orion spacecraft to the Exploration Upper Stage
Mobile Launcher 2, a larger launch tower for the upgraded Space Launch System rocket
Habitation and Logistics Outpost, a habitation module for the Lunar Gateway
The memorandum notes that each of these projects has experienced substantial cost increases and numerous delays over the last decade.
“Over the course of their life cycles, the combined contract values for these efforts ballooned from nearly $2.8 billion to $5.9 billion and NASA extended their contracted delivery dates by up to seven years,” states the report by the inspector general. “However, our projections indicate that if NASA allowed work to continue to completion, the systems would have cost more and taken longer than what was on contract.”
WALLOPS ISLAND, Virginia—Just 10 months ago, NASA asked three companies if they could do something nobody had done before. Could they build and launch a satellite to save a $500 million astronomy mission at risk of crashing back to Earth? What’s more, could they do it in less than a year on a tight budget?
Katalyst Space Technologies, a startup founded in 2020, presented the most compelling solution. “They came back with a response that was technically and programmatically plausible, and then we were like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it,’” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of NASA’s astrophysics division.
That was in August of last year. In September, NASA awarded Katalyst a $30 million contract to build, test, and launch a small satellite to chase down Swift and latch onto it with three robotic arms. Then, Katalyst’s Link servicing spacecraft will boost Swift’s orbit back to a safe operating altitude, allowing it to resume scientific observations. Easier said than done. //
“From a programmatics standpoint, I consider this a success already, just from the fact that we’re even going to try this,” Domagal-Goldman said.
Mission Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen (the latter with the Canadian Space Agency) spent 10 days in early April flying by the Moon. Their journey took them farther away from Earth than any humans have gone (52,756 miles [406,771 km]) and then, on the way back on board their Orion spacecraft Integrity, they sped up to about 24,664 miles per hour (39,693 k/ph) reentering the atmosphere.
Only three other people in history have traveled faster. NASA’s Apollo 10 astronauts Thomas Stafford, John Young, and Eugene Cernan set the record for the highest speed attained by a crewed vehicle relative to the Earth’s surface: 24,791 mph (39,897 kph) on May 26, 1969.
Cernan died in 2017, Young in 2018, and Stafford in 2024.
For most of its time at Mars, the MAVEN spacecraft provided a relay for scientific data uplinked from NASA’s rovers and landers on the Martian surface. The relay allowed NASA to return significantly more data and imagery from rovers like Perseverance and Curiosity than would be possible through a direct-to-Earth radio connection.
With MAVEN out of the picture, NASA has four other orbiters it can use to provide this critical radio link. But officials aren’t sure how much longer they will last. Three of the four remaining relay orbiters are older than MAVEN, which played an outsized role in the relay network thanks to its higher orbit.
“Over the life of the mission, MAVEN supported more than 8 percent of all of our relay sessions planned by our rovers and landers, but it accounted for nearly 18 percent of all of the data returned, illustrating its usefulness when returning large data volumes,” said Tiffany Morgan, director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program.
The network still has plenty of capacity to support the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers, with some minor caveats.
“We do have remaining assets, and those assets have adjusted the amount of data that they return, and the rovers have also adjusted their planning for how they connect to those assets,” Morgan said. “There is a slight delay on occasion, because we don’t have as many assets in view, to getting our science data back, and MAVEN was critical in returning science data versus operational data. But the Mars Relay Network is resilient enough at this point in time to accommodate, for the most part, the loss of MAVEN with the added delay.” //
jimlux Ars Tribunus Militum
12y
1,671
jlredford said:
It's interesting that they're able to use so many different orbiters to do this relay function. Interesting and resilient! It's great that it can handle dropouts like MAVEN. As the system gets upgraded, I hope they keep all this inter-operability to handle the next failure. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is the main link these days, and it's now 20 years old, almost twice the age of MAVEN.
That’s because most of them (at least those launched after 2005) fly the JPL developed Electra software defined radio (they’re manufactured by L3, but the hardware design and the software is JPL). The landers also use Electra radios (or Electra Lite). MER was the first Mars lander to use relay ops with an orbiter to return data, and after a week or two, it had returned more data through the relay link than all previous Mars missions combined. It’s that effective (compared to basic X-band Direct to Earth at 8 kbps)
And as far as interoperability goes, that’s part of the Prox-1 standard from the Consultative Committee on Space Data Standards (ccsds.org) - most people flying a relay payload use it (as will the new Mars Telecom Network, and similar spacecraft planned for the Moon). 400 MHz UHF at Mars for now, but S-band is coming, as is Ka-band.
Is it a hidden gem, a cult classic, or hopelessly dumb? We vote “all of the above.” //
Even operating at its most frantic peak in 1985 just before Challenger’s loss, the shuttle hardware managed a maximum of nine flights in one calendar year; for most of the 1990s, it performed at five or six flights per year. Civilians in space—to say nothing of Big Bird—would have to wait.
And into that post-Challenger disillusioned summer of 1986, Hollywood brought us SpaceCamp. It had all the right ingredients: A stacked cast with a solid leading duo (Kate Capshaw and Tom Skerritt), tons of real NASA location footage, and a big, brassy score by none other than John Williams. The film was completed before the Challenger disaster, leaving 20th Century Fox with something of a nightmarish choice on their hands—to shelve the film and lose millions, or send it to theaters and risk a PR disaster.
For better or for worse, Fox chose to release the film, which ultimately made about $9.6 million on a reported $25 million budget. Ouch.
NASA satellites designed to observe cyclone wind speeds and collapsing ice sheets have also proven capable of identifying the approximate locations of GPS jammers. That could help monitor high-risk areas for aircraft and ships navigating the growing prevalence of GPS interference worldwide.
Two different NASA satellite systems showed how they could locate a known but mysterious GPS jammer within several kilometers of its position in Iran, according to an experiment by Sean Gorman, CEO and cofounder of the location-based technology company Zephr.xyz that was detailed in the magazine GPS World. Such jammers use strong signals to overpower the weaker radio signals coming from US-operated GPS satellites and other global navigation satellite systems. //
One of the NASA satellite systems, the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS), has eight microsatellites that detect GPS signals reflected from ocean surfaces to measure wind speeds within the eyewalls of hurricanes, tropical cyclones, and typhoons. When an Earth-based jammer turns on, the effect creates a huge footprint in the reflected GPS signals that can show up hundreds of kilometers from the jammer’s location.
The other satellite system, NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), typically uses radar imaging to continually map and track changes across the Earth’s surface, including earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and ice sheet collapses. GPS jammer emissions create streaks in the NISAR radar imagery that run perpendicular to flight direction—meaning that “each streak encodes the jammer’s direction relative to the satellite’s ground track,” Gorman wrote in his GPS World article.
“CYGNSS sees the jammer’s effect on reflected GPS signals, offering an indirect measurement spread across hundreds of specular reflection points,” Gorman wrote. “NISAR sees the jammer’s emissions directly in its own receiver, which is a more precise measurement, but only along the satellite’s narrow ground track.”
View and download this historic assembly code for your own space program //
The historic computer software code that took Apollo 11 to the moon has been open-sourced and is available for anyone to read, download, and tinker with. NASA’s Chris Garry made the code available on GitHub as public domain. The published resource is basically in two large codebases, one set of code for the Command Module (Comanche055) and another for the Lunar Module (Luminary099). These modules both had their own Apollo 11 guidance computers (AGC) upon which to run the code, and were instrumental to the success of the remarkable mission – the first human Moon landing in history. //
It is fascinating to see this Apollo 11 code from nearly 60 years ago shared in the context of the ongoing Artemis II lunar mission. Today, we aren’t marveling at the lean and mean machine code that NASA is using to get humans to and from the Moon. Rather, Microsoft Outlook email bugs and a malfunctioning toilet on the Orion spacecraft may have taken the shine off the momentous achievement this latest mission represents.
These captivating reads offer some needed and expert perspectives on our quest to understand the universe and our place within it.
Welcome to the Artemis II multimedia resource collection. Here, you can view and download mission photographs, behind‑the‑scenes videos, podcasts, and more. The Artemis II mission—NASA’s first crewed lunar flyby in over 50 years—is a key step toward a long‑term return to the Moon and future crewed missions to Mars.
bpatb Ars Centurion
14y
241
Subscriptor
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
These four are very good at making us yearn for space.
Perhaps because I wasn’t alive during Apollo, part of me has often gravitated to robotic space missions. I identified with spacecraft like Voyager, Cassini, New Horizons, and the rovers traversing Mars as examples of real exploration. It was still possible to connect crewed platforms in low-Earth orbit, like the International Space Station, with the idea of exploring through the attainment of knowledge. With more than 25 years of uninterrupted crewed operations, the ISS has taught NASA and its international partners how to live and work in space and paved the way for the establishment of a permanent base on the Moon.
But it was easy to connect the innate drive to explore with the excitement of seeing new landscapes on Mars, the ghostly plumes of Enceladus, and the heart of Pluto. These were new worlds revealed for the first time, and each discovery sparked a bevy of new questions.
Artemis II struck the same vein, revealing things unseen by human eyes before. Like those missions far out in the Solar System, this was exploration in action. But seeing and hearing what the Artemis II astronauts saw added another dimension. It scratched an itch that a robot can’t reach. Here were human beings, people I’ve met and people you might someday meet, going through an entirely new experience. //
Sure, Artemis II didn’t land on the Moon. That will come on a future Artemis flight. But these four astronauts ventured to greater distances than Apollo and saw parts of the far side of the Moon hidden from view during those missions more than 50 years ago. Modern technology provided new opportunities for the astronauts to share their views with the world—from their view, just a fragile blue marble suspended in a cosmic void.
Speaking from the Orion spacecraft on April 4, Glover, the mission’s pilot, remarked on the view in a long-distance virtual interview with CBS News.
“One of the really important personal perspectives that I have up here is I can really see Earth as one thing,” Glover said on the eve of Easter. “You guys are talking to us because we’re in a spaceship really far from Earth, but you’re on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the Universe, in the cosmos.
“Maybe the distance we are from you makes you think what we’re doing is special, but we’re the same distance from you, and I’m trying to tell you—just trust me—you are special. In all of this emptiness—this is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the Universe—you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together.
“As we go into Easter Sunday, thinking about all the cultures all around the world, whether you celebrate it or not, whether you believe in God or not, this is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are, and that we are the same thing, and that we’ve got to get through this together.” //
“When we saw tiny Earth, people asked our crew what impressions we had, and honestly, what struck me wasn’t necessarily just Earth. It was all the blackness around it. Earth was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbingly in the Universe,” she said. “I know I haven’t learned everything that this journey has yet to teach me, but there is one new thing I know, and that is planet Earth, you are a crew.”
Commander Wiseman, Reid, you said in an interview back in February that you hoped this mission would be forgotten, overshadowed by all that was to come after. But I'm very sorry to disappoint you all. Artemis II will always be remembered. It was the moment we all saw the Moon again. Where childhoold dreams became missions. You helped the world to start believing again, and this is something that no one's ever going to forget. So, on behalf of NASA and the space-loving community from around the world: Thank you, for showing us your courage, your professionalism, your unity, and your humanity. Thank you, for showing us the Moon again. Thank you, for showing us Planet Earth again. And Thank you, for contributing to the greatest adventure in human history. Welcome home, Artemis II. //
So, when we saw tiny Earth, people asked our crew what impressions we had. And honestly, what struck me wasn't necessarily just Earth. It was all the blackness around it. Earth was just this lifeboat hanging, undisturbingly in the universe.
Artemis II Journey to the Moon
Pictures
Every 10 years, the National Academies convene a panel of planetary scientists to set priorities for Solar System exploration. These decadal surveys help NASA decide where to send missions and what scientific questions they should seek to answer. None of the results from Artemis II are likely to answer these big questions.
“Is there going to be decadal-level science out of Artemis II? Probably not,” Neal told Ars in an interview this week. “This is a technology demonstration mission… This is primarily to have a crew there to check out the engineering and make sure that things are working.”
From a scientific perspective, what’s most intriguing about Artemis II is figuring out how to incorporate humans into planetary exploration. For more than 50 years, generations of scientists have learned to explore other worlds only through the electronic eyes of robots. With NASA’s return to the Moon, they must learn to take advantage of human observations.
This requires a shift in how ground teams design instruments, plan science campaigns, and select targets for their observations. It also necessitates a change in culture. Astronauts on the lunar surface or in lunar orbit will provide a real-time feedback loop for the army of scientists looking over their shoulders from Earth. During the Apollo program, it took multiple landings to fine-tune how this works.
Should we take a closer look at this rock? Should we go see that outcrop? Humans can make these key decisions in seconds or minutes rather than days, weeks, months, or in some cases, years.
The experience of the Artemis II flyby also informed spacecraft engineers about the utility of the Orion spacecraft as an observation platform and the optical quality of the capsule’s windows. The astronauts reported some issues with glare from the Sun and the Earth. They MacGyvered a makeshift window shroud using a T-shirt to help overcome the glare so they could better see the lunar surface.
“We confirmed that we can achieve science through orbital observations and through integrating science into flight operations,” said Kelsey Young, NASA’s science lead for the Artemis II mission.
Human eyes are remarkably good at sensing color gradients and brightness changes. “Right away, they started describing the green around Aristarchus plateau and different brown hues, and these colors really help tell us nuances about the chemistry of lunar material,” Young said after the flyby.
Glover, Artemis II’s pilot, noted his perception of the Moon’s three-dimensionality during the flyby: “You really get a sense that we’re flying over something with elevation and terrain.” The astronauts were able to glimpse craters, mountains, and ridges at different angles as the Orion capsule arced behind the Moon. “Every vantage point is different,” Young said. //
“You might think that, after looking at hundreds of images taken of the lunar surface, I would get sick of it,” Young said. “I have not, nor do I anticipate getting sick of it.”
“It was quite infectious,” Neal said. “The Earthrise image that they took is one for the ages.”
One of my favorite Apollo astronauts is the late Jim Lovell. He flew in two missions yet never walked on the moon. His unflappable leadership during the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission helped make it what some called a “successful failure.”
Lovell also flew on Apollo 8, the mission that first flew around the moon. It was Christmas Eve 1968, and Lovell, William Anders, and Frank Borman delivered a Christmas message to the world from their orbit around the moon, which included a reading from Genesis 1: //
Lovell passed away at the age of 97 in August of last year, but a couple of months before he died, he recorded a message for Artemis II. NASA kept Lovell’s message a secret, but mission control played it to wake the crew up on Monday.
Hello Artemis II! This is Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell. Welcome to my old neighborhood. When Frank Borman and Bill Anders and I orbited the moon on Apollo 8, we got humanity's first up close look at the moon and got a view of the home planet that inspired and united people around the world. I'm proud to pass that torch on to you as you swing around the moon and lay the groundwork for missions to Mars, for the benefit of all. It's a historic day, and I know how busy you'll be, but don't forget to enjoy the view. So, Reid and Victor and Christina and Jeremy, and all the great teams supporting you, good luck and Godspeed from all of us here on the good earth.
Most of the out-of-this-world photos being beamed home from Artemis II were taken with an old-model Nikon camera that can be bought for about $1,000.
NASA traded in the legendary Hasselblad model it used on Apollo missions years ago for the Nikon D5 DSLR — a classic digital single-lens-reflex camera first released in 2016.
The Nikon was carefully selected for its proven track record as a workhorse space camera, as well as its extraordinary ability to pick up detail even in extreme darkness, Nikon’s top NASA consultant told The Post on Tuesday.
He said the Nikon D5 has been used successfully in space since 2017 — and “is still producing amazing images for them.”
One of the camera’s top-selling points for Artemis II was its incredible low-light capabilities, Corrado said.
The camera is able to shoot at an ISO — or light-sensitivity rating — of up to 3.2 million. //
“After this mission, it should be Z9. They won’t go back to the D5 after this,” he said. “Once they fully test and continue to test, the Z9 will be the camera going to the moon.”
Artemis II brought a total 32 cameras onboard for their 10-day mission.
Fifteen were mounted on the spacecraft, and 17 were handheld cameras the crew operated while peering out the cabin windows during their historic flyby of the lunar far side.