NASA's Voyager 1 Probe Resumes Sending Usable Data After Months of Garbled Transmissions

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, the most distant human-made object in the universe, has resumed sending usable data to Earth after months of transmitting garbled information. The issue first arose in November 2022 when the probe's flight data system began sending an indecipherable repeating pattern of code, rendering the data unusable.

After a series of commands and troubleshooting, the mission team was able to identify the cause of the problem - a single corrupted chip in the flight data system's memory. To fix this, they relocated the affected code to other parts of the system memory by slicing it into sections and storing the chunks separately.

On April 18, 2024, the team began sending the code to its new location, and by April 20, they confirmed the modification had worked, allowing them to communicate with Voyager 1 and check its health for the first time in five months. Over the next few weeks, the team will work on adjusting the rest of the flight data system software and aim to recover the regions of the system responsible for packaging and returning vital science data from beyond the solar system.

Why this matters: The successful restoration of Voyager 1's data transmission capabilities is a significant milestone for the 46-year-old spacecraft, which continues to provide valuable insights about the outer reaches of our solar system and interstellar space. This achievement highlights the resilience and ingenuity of NASA's mission teams in overcoming the challenges of operating a spacecraft at such immense distances from Earth.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, are the longest-operating spacecraft in history. Both probes carry 'Golden Records' intended to convey the story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager spacecraft are expected to have their power banks depleted sometime after 2025, after which they will continue to wander the Milky Way in silence.

"We're happy to have the telemetry back," said Suzanne Dodd, project manager for Voyager 1 and 2 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We'll do a full memory readout of the AACS and look at everything it's been doing. That will help us try to diagnose the problem that caused the telemetry issue in the first place." The team will continue to monitor the spacecraft's health as it explores the boundary between the solar system and interstellar space, providing humanity with unprecedented data about this uncharted territory.

Key Takeaways

• Voyager 1 spacecraft resumes sending usable data to Earth after months of garbled transmissions.
• The issue was caused by a single corrupted chip in the flight data system's memory.
• NASA's team fixed the issue by relocating the affected code to other parts of the system memory.
• Successful restoration of Voyager 1's data transmission capabilities is a significant milestone for the 46-year-old spacecraft.
• Voyager spacecraft are expected to have their power banks depleted sometime after 2025.