After more than five months without contact, NASA has finally reconnected with Voyager 1, the farthest spacecraft from Earth.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) said Voyager 1 had not been sending readable data back to Earth since Nov. 14, 2023, despite the spacecraft still receiving mission controller commands.
In December 2023, the JPL announced the problem was with one of Voyager 1’s onboard computers called the flight data subsystem (FDS).
However, the JPL announced this week that Voyager 1 had resumed sending engineering updates to Earth.
The code that packages Voyager 1’s engineering data was the first to be sent to its new location on April 18.
When the team heard from Voyager 1 on April 20, they knew the fix was a success, the JPL said.
Voyager 1 was launched in September 1977 under the Voyager program to study the farther planets of the solar system and interstellar space.
Voyager 1 entered interstellar space in 2012 becoming the first man-made object to exit the solar system.
NASA has successfully restored communication with Voyager 1, the spacecraft that is furthest from Earth, following a break of over five months.
Voyager 1 has not been returning readable data to Earth since November, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). 14, 2023, even though the spacecraft is still getting instructions from the mission controller.
The JPL declared in December 2023 that the flight data subsystem (FDS), one of Voyager 1’s onboard computers, was malfunctioning. NASA reported that despite engineers’ best efforts to restart the computer, the issue remained.
That being said, Voyager 1 has started sending Earthbound engineering updates again, according to a JPL announcement this week.
NASA reported that engineers had identified the issue earlier this month: a chip that was in charge of storing a portion of the computer’s memory had become corrupted, rendering the data unreadable. In a release on Monday, the JPL stated that although the team was unable to fix the chip, they determined that the impacted code needed to be kept in different parts of the FDS memory because no single location could accommodate it.
According to the release, the team “devised a plan to divide the affected code into sections and store those sections in different places in the FDS.”. “They also had to change those code sections so that, for example, they still function as a unit in order for this plan to work. “.
April 18 marked the first code to be sent to its new location; it packages the engineering data from Voyager 1. According to JPL, a radio signal takes 22.05 hours to get to Voyager 1 and an additional 22.05 hours to return to Earth. The JPL stated that the team knew the fix worked when they received a message from Voyager 1 on April 20.
Hi, this is me. – V1,” Voyager 1’s X account stated on Monday afternoon.
More FDS software will be moved over the coming weeks, and the team will work to get the spacecraft back into orbit so it can start sending back science data, according to the JPL.
Under the Voyager program, which aims to explore interstellar space and distant planets in the solar system, Voyager 1 was launched in September 1977. In 2012, Voyager 1 became the first artificial object to leave the solar system when it entered interstellar space.
