[Ductapemaster]

Check out this talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF_9YcehCZo

The source code isn't hiding in a repo somewhere for security reasons — it's spread around on various pieces of paper and computers over the last 50 years. There isn't a single source of truth. Adds a whole other level of wizardry to keeping the thing running.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

Like, maybe that was originally true, but they have had decades. Numerous times contact has been lost, hardware failed, key people died, etc.

How has nobody at the top ordered a digitization and consolidation of all known code and supporting documentation during that time frame.

[kulahan]

It costs money that would better be sent towards other projects, and NASA needs to be as careful as possible with spending their very limited budget.

Having a ton of people run around the office for a couple months to collate a bunch of documents so you can better pass info on to a new generation of workers when the satellite might not even be usable anymore isn't very efficient. Might as well just pay an extra 50% or whatever to the 5 dudes who know what's going on until the thing is inop. Even if it died today, the mission still would've been a massive success.

[detourdog]

The architecture probably doesn’t lend itself to the same development process we are all familiar with.