• @DharkStare
    link
    English
    281 year ago

    Reading this article made me wonder if a satellite can be turned off and then back on. I’ve never really thought about how satellites are maintained and serviced. You can’t exactly send IT up there to fix things.

    • @rtxn
      link
      English
      31
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      You reboot the satellite, then it hits you with /sbin/init does not exist. Bailing out, you are on your own now. Good luck.

      • masterofn001
        link
        fedilink
        English
        161 year ago

        Linux has some dead pan humour system failure messages. Keeps things fun when everything goes to shit.

        I did hit that one once. Or twice.

        • SGG
          link
          English
          101 year ago

          Make sense given it’s open source.

          Despite how much government and business use it gets, when you have someone like Linus torvalds at the helm you will get fun things.

    • @ramielrowe
      link
      English
      201 year ago

      At it’s most basic, a satellite will have two systems. A highly robust command and control system with a fairly omnidirectional antenna. And then the more complex system that handles the payload(s). So yea, if the payload system crashes, you can restart it via C&C.

    • deaconblue
      link
      fedilink
      71 year ago

      But if you could that is absolutely the first thing that they would try, turn it off and then back on

    • HubertManne
      link
      fedilink
      51 year ago

      nasa seems to reboot things so I don’t see why not. When they do though I think its really nail biting while they hope to hear from it again when it boots up.

    • Rhodin
      link
      fedilink
      41 year ago

      Normally, they’re not fixed. They just let it crash very literally and send up a new one. NASA’s apparently working on repairable satellites.