Post #2299442
2024-04-23 06:38 UTC
The AACS (Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystem) is another mild variant of the Viking CCS architecture, and is in charge of orientation: firing thrusters, antenna alignment, all that good stuff.
Finally, the FDS (Flight Data Subsystem) is where the science happens. The FDS buffers data from the instruments (to an honest to god eight-track tape), and encodes it into frames for transmission, with all the error correction and what have you.
Replies (1)
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@danderson@hachyderm.io 2024-04-23 06:41
The FDS needed to do quite a lot, especially during the flybys in the primary mission. So, it contains a radical novelty, never before seen in a spacecraft: CMOS memory. This newfangled CMOS stuff could go faster, and store more bits. But it's also volatile memory (which implies that Voyager has been running continuously, since first power-on after launch, for 46 years), and more susceptible to bitrot from all the spicy cosmic rays and stuff.