We often think of spacecraft as being the most advanced machines out there. But when you think about their lifecycles, the technology aboard them is often … well, not exactly “space age.”
My fiancé used to work in media relations for the Cassini imaging team, and I remember him telling me once that the cameras on Cassini were the equivalent of one megapixel.
This image brought to you by a camera you wouldn't be caught dead using to Instagram your brunch (Courtesy the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations)
With Cassini back in the news recently as it prepares for its grand finale, I started wondering about other “obsolete” technology that’s still helping us explore our solar system.
- The instruments that transmitted data from New Horizons in 2015 used a microwave frequency that was several decades old. Just two years after New Horizons was launched, NASA upgraded to a faster microwave band.
- The flight computers on the Orion capsule, launched in 2014, used single-core processors that had been around since 2002. In an interview with Space Review, NASA’s Matt Lemke said that’s because they were prioritizing reliability, not speed.
- In The Farthest, a documentary about the Voyager missions, a scientist says that their computing power is less than what we now regularly carry in our pockets. And he wasn’t talking about our smartphones – he was referring to our key fobs.
It just goes to show that, sometimes, tried and true can be preferable to cutting edge. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go pop a tape in the ol' VCR.