Day 255/365: Another day in London, another tranche of Ancient Space Hardware

[nanila]

Today my boss ambled in and dropped another load of Space History on my desk. This included a bunch of photographs of Cassini flight hardware (subject of a future post), but also three photos of Ulysses hardware, which is even older.

The Ulysses spacecraft, which is still in orbit although decommissioned and not operational, remains one of the few spacecraft to leave the ecliptic plane of the solar system to a significant degree. It studied the poles of the Sun. It launched in 1990, and the total mission duration was over eighteen years.

We estimate these photos are from the early 1980s. They're of the flight hardware for the magnetometer, which now drifts quietly with the rest of the silent spacecraft, between Jupiter and the Sun.


[Ulysses magnetometer sensor head]


[Ulysses magnetometer electronics box]


[Topside view of one of the Ulysses magnetometer flight boards. Look at all those beautifully hand-soldered through-hole components!]

Comments

[redsixwing]

That flight board is a work of art. *makes heart eyes*

What a cool piece of space history!

[nanila]

It's gorgeous, isn't it? Am very pleased to have the photos.

[davidgillon]

Ooh, a black box! Not a sarcastic response, that was the pic I opened first to compare to our flight boxes. I think the big difference was ours were meant to be taken in and out of the aircraft for maintenance, so came with a handle and a palm-sized knob on the front panel for a really big screw passing through the length of the box to secure them in place.

Look at all those beautifully hand-soldered through-hole components!

Friend's first job at Evil Aerospace in the early 80s was hand-wiring RAM. Not RAM chips, individual bits.

[nanila]

One of the Cassini pics has a bunch of hand wound transformers. Those were done by our now-retired technician. They are so pretty.

[davidgillon]

I imagine creating them included a lot of counting and recounting the turns to make sure they had it right!

[nanila]

According to my labmates, he had a habit of abruptly telling people to STFU and leave him alone if they tried to interrupt when he was winding. Which must have been quite scary, as he was super chilled out otherwise.

[davidgillon]

Unsurprising, I suppose. You really don't want to get the number of turns wrong!

[worlds_of_smoke]

ooooh, neat! Thank you for sharing this. :D

[nanila]

Yay, I'm glad you enjoyed them!

[hilarita]

OMG SPACE HISTORY!

[hilarita]

Just to share the SPACE stuff - we have pictures up around our office of a prototype antenna design for SKA1 LOW.

[nanila]

Oh, Excellent! We have a 3D render of the MAG boom up in the corridor. It's very heartening.

[nanila]

YESSS we have so much of it omg

[wohali]

I can't get enough of this stuff!!!

[nanila]

Great, cos there's more coming! :D

[tree_and_leaf]

That is incredibly cool!

[nanila]

Yes! Also, literally as well, since the spacecraft is now drifting unpowered through space. ;)

[tree_and_leaf]

Lol!

[silveradept]

Those are really neat pictures of space history. Such nice soldering.

[nanila]

I feel fortunate to have been bequeathed the photos. :)

[kaberett]

I do a grateful cry about the good space robots every time, than you <3

[nanila]

They are the best space robots. <3