NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft resumes sending data to Earth from interstellar space after 5-month outage
Voyager 1 and 2 launched in 1977 and are NASA’s oldest and most distant robotic space travelers. An issue with Voyager 1’s code that began in November meant the spacecraft was unable to send back data from interstellar space. After some creative engineering to find a solution, Voyager teams got the first usable data from the spacecraft on April 20.
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Cheers and applause erupted this weekend when NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft sent back the first usable data from interstellar space after a five-month communication gap.
Engineers with Voyager's flight team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have been troubleshooting an issue since November, when the spacecraft, more than 15.1 billion miles from Earth, began sending back nonsense computer code.
On Saturday, after 45 hours of waiting to find out if their plan to send the problem code elsewhere on the spacecraft’s computer would work, the team got its response.
NASA ENGINEERS HAVE RENEWED HOPE TO FIX HOBBLED VOYAGER 1 AFTER INTERSTELLAR SPACE DATA OUTAGE
"For the first time since November, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems," NASA JPL said in a blog. "The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again."
Earlier this year, NASA engineers honed in on one of three computers on the spacecraft, known as the Flight Data System (FDS), as the cause behind the communication problem.
An artist's concept of Voyager 1 entering interstellar space, or the space between the stars. Interstellar space is filled with plasma, ionized gas (shown as a brownish haze here), that was cast off by giant stars millions of years ago, NASA said. (NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA/JPL-Caltech Photojournal / NASA)
"Its role is to basically collect all of the data from the science instruments and the spacecraft, package them all neatly up and send them back to the Earth," Voyager Program scientist Linda Spilker told FOX Weather in mid-March.
Eventually, the team discovered that the problem was a single chip responsible for storing part of the computer’s memory, including some of its software code.
According to NASA, the team decided to place the problem code elsewhere in the computer’s memory. However, no single location has enough space to hold the code section, so the code was divided into sections and sent to different places on the FDS.
VOYAGER 1 AND 2 CONTINUE OFFERING NEW MYSTERIES FROM INTERSTELLAR SPACE
On April 18, the team sent the first section of code responsible for packaging the spacecraft’s engineering data. It takes 22.5 hours to send a radio signal with the repair to Voyager 1 and another 22.5 hours to receive a signal back to Earth.
"When the mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on April 20, they saw that the modification worked: For the first time in five months, they have been able to check the health and status of the spacecraft," NASA said.
This isn’t the first scare for either of NASA's twin interstellar spacecraft, which started as a 5-year mission and has now been operating for 46 years.
Another issue with garbled data for Voyager 1 in 2022 was fixed over several months. In 1981, the team experienced a similar communication issue to the current problem.
Voyager 2 is currently operating normally more than 12.6 billion miles from Earth. Last year, an incorrect command sent Voyager 2 pointing away from Earth, preventing it from sending back data. Teams were able to send a patch and reorient the spacecraft.
In the coming weeks, more commands will be sent to relocate Voyager 1's problem code and adjust the FDS software. Eventually, the spacecraft will begin returning science data.