back to article NASA's Jupiter probe wakes up after unexpected snooze

NASA's Juno probe is back up and running after unexpectedly putting itself into a hibernating "safe mode" during its last orbit around Earth. juno Juno is back online and ready to rumble "The spacecraft exited safe mode at 4:12 p.m. CDT (5:12 p.m. EDT) earlier today," said the Southwest Research Institute, which instigated …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Radio hams?

    So now they have to make space probes safe from DoS attacks? Wonderful...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Radio hams?

      Just bear in mind that they REQUESTED the 'DoS' - to test some sensor onboard the craft. (Gravity wave detector, iirc)

      1. JeffyPoooh
        Pint

        Re: Radio hams?

        "(Gravity wave detector, iirc)"

        You don't (recall correctly).

        There are certainly some very plump amateur radio enthusiasts, but they generally don't move fast enough to generate significant gravity waves.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Radio hams?

          Too right, some of us could wipe out the entire planet's life if we did that sort of near-light s thpeed thing.

          If the RF sent Juno's way was problematic then it's going to fall over when it reaches Jupiter as the fields generating the RF there are quite a lot of dB larger than we can generate from earth.

        2. cortland

          Re: Radio hams?

          There is, however, such a thing as a "California Kilowatt." Or was:

          http://www.qsl.net/ne6i/w6am/shack.html

    2. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

      Re: Radio hams?

      Would that be a Denial of Ham attack? Love the TLA that would give :)

  2. Notas Badoff
    Coffee/keyboard

    *cough*

    "Sphincters unclench audibly at mission control"

    So that's fine, then, ... let's quit farting around and get back to work!

  3. Christoph

    "The safe mode did not impact the spacecraft’s trajectory one smidgeon."

    With the accuracy that they need for navigation in this type of manoeuvre, I'm surprised that they weren't measuring the trajectory in milli-smidgeons.

    1. DasBub

      They didn't want to worry anyone about the 0.43 smidgeon drift. We Science types saw through their veil of smidgeon skullduggery.

    2. Turtle

      Scientific Terminology.

      "'The safe mode did not impact the spacecraft’s trajectory one smidgeon.' With the accuracy that they need for navigation in this type of manoeuvre, I'm surprised that they weren't measuring the trajectory in milli-smidgeons."

      What surprised me, was that NASA would even use that kind of arcane scientific terminology in a public pronouncement at all. Because it is, after all, rocket science.

      1. cortland

        Re: Scientific Terminology.

        Milli-smidgeons? What about classic units, the Helen, say; one milli-Helen being a face beautiful enough to launch just ONE ship (but see http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/millihelen.)

    3. Splodger

      New Reg Unit?

      Let's just hope they're not confusing their U.S. smidgeons with Imperial smidgeons or S.I. smidgres.

  4. Triggerfish

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DItgw1mU9Us

  5. Jan 0 Silver badge
    Headmaster

    Far from nominally

    "The spacecraft is currently operating nominally and all systems are fully functional."

    I hope you mean normally! It was operating nominally (in name alone) as a spacecraft.

    Now it's a fully functional spacecraft again - I think that counts as normal for a space probe.

    1. Dave Harris 1

      Re: Far from nominally

      "Nominally" is a fairly standard term in this context in the Space industry and actually refers to the fact that all telemetry parameters are within allowed limits - i.e., they are nominal - a meaning of the word which can be found in the Oxford dictionary.

    2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      Re: Far from nominally

      "I hope you mean normally! It was operating nominally (in name alone) as a spacecraft."

      They don't.

      NASA use "mode" as a verb.

      It is however operating "nominally" as a fully functioning space probe.

      1. ian 22

        Re: Far from nominally

        Only anti-semantic bastards use nouns as verbs or vice-versa.

        1. Martin Budden Silver badge
          Coat

          Re: Far from nominally

          Verbing rocks.

  6. Vociferous

    "The spacecraft is currently operating nominally and all systems are fully functional."

    Is that a '2001 - a space odyssey' reference?

    1. proto-robbie
      Coat

      Oh my God, it's full of stars

    2. Suricou Raven

      Re: "The spacecraft is currently operating nominally and all systems are fully functional."

      Quite possibly. I imagine that most of the staff at NASA have read the book.

      (For those who don't get it, one crew member on a ship comments that all systems are 'normal.' Another then points out that they are hurtling in a one-of-a-kind craft the furthest from earth any human has ever traveled: This is not normal. The first character then rephrases the situation as 'all systems nominal, then.')

    3. Myvekk

      Re: "The spacecraft is currently operating nominally and all systems are fully functional."

      "Respond to your queries as I pass Earth? I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

  7. Graham Marsden
    Alert

    "It is possible some of the messages...

    "...sent to the probe by radio hams here on Earth may have caused the original problems with the probe."

    Did someone discover a buffer overflow error...?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Re: "It is possible some of the messages...

      No, I'm betting that some snark sent '73' and the receiver just shut down and went to bed.

      1. JeffyPoooh
        Pint

        Re: "It is possible some of the messages...

        Millions of hams sending "HI HI HI" (Morse code version of LOL).

        Juno probably frustrated that it missed the greatest joke ever told.

  8. Drew 11

    The probe was so excited it was going to get a message from earth.

    10 minutes late, only "H" had shown up, it got bored and went to bed early.

  9. Tom 35

    Some one sent...

    N0 CARRIER

  10. Trollslayer
    Devil

    Wonderful El Reg phraseology

    "Sphincters unclench audibly"

  11. Don Jefe
    Alien

    Space "Scientists"

    Yippie skippy, they went off to some fancy college and got themselves a graduate degree in 'space science'. Fat lot of good it does them if they never bothered to learn even basic science fiction.

    Everybody knows when a person or a probe 'disappears' from communication for a while then reappears it is no longer the thing that went missing. It has always been replaced with the consciousness of an alien being or reprogrammed and it is never a positive thing.

    I can't believe these assholes haven't hit the self-destruct button yet. This is all going to end in tears. And screaming. Yep, definitely tears and screaming.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: Space "Scientists"

      But we have Space Obama to save us; he's better than Hope Corgi. All will be well.

    2. Myvekk

      Re: Space "Scientists"

      They probably figure that since it is now on a one way trip to Jupiter, we are not going to be in much trouble from whatever stupid alien hitched a ride on the probe going the wrong way...

      1. Caesarius
        Thumb Up

        Re: Space "Scientists"

        Anyone remember "Victory Unintentional" by Asimov?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    "The spacecraft exited safe mode at 4:12 p.m. CDT (5:12 p.m. EDT) earlier today"

    Typical Windows. I hope they fire the sys admin who booted it into safe mode and forgot to take it out again.

    1. defiler

      Just be grateful...

      ...it was "Safe Mode with Networking".

  13. Unicornpiss

    Fastest man-made object?

    I believe the Voyager 1 and 2 probes still have that honor, currently moving at about 35,000 MPH, or over 56,000 KPH.

  14. Suricou Raven

    Speed is meaningless,

    Unless you can define relative to what. Is that speed relative to sun or earth?

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Speed is meaningless,

      Hopefully they mean relative to the Sun. Since most probes are sent out in the plane of the ecliptic, speed relative to the Earth would vary depending on where the Earth is in it's orbit, approaching towards or receding from the current point in space where the probe is.

      1. keith_w

        Re: Speed is meaningless,

        I prefer to think that is travelling away from its former location at whatever speed is being referenced.

  15. Annihilator
    Boffin

    "The $1.1bn solar-powered probe will arrive at the planet in the summer of 2016, provided it suffers no more problems"

    Problems or not, it's pretty much guaranteed to arrive at Jupiter in summer '16 now regardless of what happens

    1. Myvekk

      The problems (if any), just determine whether it arrives in orbit around Jupiter or in Jupiter...

  16. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    IT Angle

    Blame BAE systems

    They supplied the rad hard Power750 SBC running it.

    Modestly priced at $200k for a 200MHz board.

    That's $1/KHz.

  17. itzman

    Watchdog?

    When I were coding milspec embedded, it was standard practice to fill spaces between subroutines with jumps to watchdog code, the theory being that if EMP cosmic rays or whatever knocked the program counter into outer space (sic!) the code had a chance of resetting itself.. I wonder if that's what happened here..

    1. WraithCadmus
      Thumb Up

      Re: Watchdog?

      Cunning, the powers of the NOP-sled being harnessed for good.

  18. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    "If the RF sent Juno's way was problematic then it's going to fall over when it reaches Jupiter as the fields generating the RF there are quite a lot of dB larger than we can generate from earth."

    Well, last I heard, the most spacecraft have is perhaps a checksum on each command so it does not run a corrupted command due to interference... but nothing else to prevent anyone with a powerful enough transmitter to send the spacecraft any command they'd like. I have no idea what experiment would involve hams beaming RF at the craft... unless this was attempts to revive it.

    That said, several spacecraft have had on-board failures (not just RF) due to Jupiter's intense magnetic fields and radiation belts. One of the Voyager's had a few bits of RAM permanently damaged by this if I recall correctly. (So, it sent back photos with some bits flipped as it loaded each photo from it's onboard storage into the (faulty) RAM, until NASA rewrote some bit of code to jump around the bad memory for the remainder of the mission.) I recall one of the Voyagers also rebooted when going through an especially strong radiation belt.

    1. kryptonaut

      Hams

      I have no idea what experiment would involve hams beaming RF at the craft... unless this was attempts to revive it.

      I think it was a misunderstood request for as many hams as possible to be beamed at the craft, so that Nibbler could produce more dark matter.

  19. DB2DBA

    Unexpected snooze?

    Of course it was snoozing. congress ordered it to when it shutdown the government!

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Radio hams, or...

    ... the NSA uploading their Jupiter spying patch?

  21. JDX Gold badge

    will arrive at the planet in the summer of 2016, provided it suffers no more problems

    I imagine it will arrive then even if it completely fails, since gravity is a 3rd-party system.

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