Here at Seagate we love a good data storage analogy. Consider the recent and quite popular Data in the Mad Men Era blog. If you’re a fan of contemplating just how far and how fast man-made innovation has taken us then you’ll love related factoids from the widely popular and successful New Horizon mission to Pluto.
From The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory website there’s a treasure trove of information to discover but we were inclined to gravitate to the site’s data collection page and the following fascinating insights:
“New Horizons…a one-way journey to the Kuiper Belt and beyond…sends back all of its data using a radio transmitter and its 83-inch (2.1-meter) diameter radio antenna. It receives commands over this link, and returns both science data and information on the spacecraft’s temperature and power.”
“New Horizons carries seven scientific instruments, which collect several types of data. (The instrument names and main functions are described in the science payload section) As an instrument makes an observation, data is transferred to a solid-state recorder (similar to a flash memory card for a digital camera), where they are compressed (if necessary), reformatted and transmitted to Earth through the spacecraft’s radio telecommunications system.”
“A major challenge for the New Horizons mission is the relatively low “downlink” rate at which data can be transmitted…During the Jupiter flyby in February 2007, New Horizons sent data home at about 38 kilobits per second (kbps), which is slightly slower than the transmission speed for most computer modems.”
Meanwhile, back on Earth Seagate’s aptly named Nytro WarpDrive Flash Accelerator Card boasts the following specifications:
- Read Bandwidth (256K) Up To 4.0GB/s
- Write Bandwidth (256K) Up To 2.5GB/s
- Read IOPs (8K) Up To 280,000
- Write IOPs (8K) Up To 200,000
- Average Latency <50 microseconds
Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a numbers person to appreciate the accomplishment of New Horizons. A recent episode of NPR’s ‘All Things Considered program addressed that burning question: ‘How Long Would It Take to Drive to Pluto?’
“Assuming a straight line trip from Earth to the dwarf planet, ignoring each planet’s relative motion and most importantly the need to stop and pee. We’ll also obey the rules of our roads and keep a steady 65 miles per hour the whole way. So when we put it all together, we get a solar system-spanning road trip that lasts how long? Oh, just about 6,206 years. And what can you expect on a 6,206 year-long road trip? Well, first off, you know how your kids made you listen to the soundtrack from Disney’s “Frozen” a million times last year on your road trip? On your way to Pluto, a million repeats of “Frozen…only gets you to about Mars, which, speaking road-tripistically (ph), is kind of like the city next door from where you live. Of course, if you really need to keep the kids occupied, there’s always the entire 116-hour “Harry Potter” books on tape series. But unfortunately, you’ll need to listen to Harry defeat Voldemort – oh, I said his name – about 400,000 times to keep the kids from killing each other on your way to Pluto.”
“ So really, what’s the big deal about something launched from Earth getting to Pluto? The voyage that would’ve taken us six millennia in an SUV has taken New Horizons a little under a decade. And after Pluto, New Horizons will sail on through the unexplored Kuiper Belt, an extended ring of planetary construction debris and out eventually towards the endless majesty of the stars. But that is another long, long, long, very long story.”
You can listen to the full story, here:
