Can you imagine if one line of code was out of place and you bricked the thing.... whops, sorry.
They probably have a lab replica they can test OTA patches on though and recover from a bricked state by directly flashing the chips.
I think it is amazing it even works at this point. Those guys that engineered and built it either were very smart or they got very lucky when you think about what they had to work with.
— at least, after the update’s transmission completes its more-than-20-hour-long journey to Voyager 1.
I guess doing firmware updates on Z-wave switches isn't so bad, after all.
I would guess (hope) the OTA code is buffered with a CRC check of some sort, before it is switched "ON LINE".
And I'm pretty sure they have the exact replica to pre test. However the electronics on the real device has been out there subjected to radiation for some time. Hardware could go "oops".
Is it really "over the AIR" if it is through space?
I would say it is not.
And here I am with my TR zigbee door sensor 3" away from the antenna watching the logs go 10% complete...20% complete, nervous as #$%@
Wouldn't the signal have to go through air to get to space?
Always a pedant in the crowd.
Touche!
Is space really a vacuum?
Actually they effectively bricked Voyager 2 in July. A mistake reoriented the antenna so that it wasn’t pointing directly at Earth. As a result communication with the probe was lost.
This wasn’t the end of the line for the probe. It was scheduled to do a realignment this month. Rather than waiting they shouted at Vorager and it heard them. They used an Australian antenna to blast a higher power signal into space. Vorager heard the interplanetary shout and reestablished communications.
Will Hubitat support spacecraft in 2.3.7? If so, what protocol(s) will be supported? Matter sounds like a good choice.... 
Good point, there is a lot of space garbage building up nowadays... Will there be space vacuums supported in 2.3.7 as well? The possibility of "Thread" seems to downplay the size of the problem.... 
Probably not a perfect vacuum over a large volume. I'm sure there is a molecule here and there.
Some time ago we needed a vacuum to perform leak testing. Then thinking about very low vacuums one realizes that mechanical vacuum pumps become useless (for the most part) as the number of molecules get fewer and fewer.
There isn't much matter in space so Matter won't matter.
