NASA Engineers Restore Communication with Voyager 2 Spacecraft After 5-Month Silence

NASA engineers have successfully fixed a failed computer chip on the Voyager 2 spacecraft, humanity's most distant spacecraft, restoring communication after a five-month period of silence. The issue was traced to a corrupted memory chip in Voyager 2's flight data system, which prevented the spacecraft from transmitting readable science and engineering data back to Earth starting on November 14, 2023.

The team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California determined that a single chip responsible for storing a portion of the flight data system's memory had malfunctioned, likely due to wear or an energetic particle from space. Unable to repair the chip directly, the engineers developed a solution to divide the affected code into sections and store it in different parts of the flight data system memory, updating references to the new locations.

On April 18, 2024, the team sent a radio signal to Voyager 2 with the updated code. Two days later, on April 20, they received a response indicating the fix had worked, allowing them to receive readable technical data from the probe again for the first time since November. "The Voyager flight team is delighted to be able to communicate with the spacecraft again," said Suzanne Dodd, project manager for Voyager at JPL.

Why this matters: The successful remote repair of Voyager 2, launched in 1977 and currently over 15 billion miles away from Earth, demonstrates NASA's ingenuity in maintaining these pioneering interstellar spacecraft. The Voyager probes continue to provide valuable scientific data and insights about the outer reaches of our solar system and beyond.

The team will continue to relocate and adjust the other affected portions of the flight data system software in the coming weeks, including the code responsible for returning science data. Voyager 2 and its twin, Voyager 1, remain the longest-operating and most distant spacecraft in history, with both probes still functioning well beyond their original 5-year design lifespan. The power output from their radioisotope thermoelectric generators decreases slightly each year, but engineers expect the probes to continue operating for several more years, providing humanity with unprecedented data from interstellar space.

Key Takeaways

• NASA engineers fixed a failed computer chip on Voyager 2, restoring communication.
• The issue was traced to a corrupted memory chip, which prevented data transmission.
• Engineers developed a solution to divide and relocate the affected code in memory.
• The fix was successfully uploaded, allowing Voyager 2 to transmit data again.
• Voyager 2 and Voyager 1 remain the longest-operating and most distant spacecraft.