For the first time since November, Voyager 1, NASA’s longest-running spacecraft, is returning data to Earth.
After five months of stillness, scientists have managed to repair a malfunction on the 46-year-old probe.
Voyager 1 ceased delivering useful data to Earth on November 14, of last year, despite the fact that scientists could still see it was receiving their orders and operating normally.
It was first introduced with Voyager 2, its twin. The two spacecraft are the only ones that have ever flown in the region between stars, known as interstellar space.
Voyager probes deliver previously unseen data about our galaxy. Since taking flight in 1977, they have found the rings of Jupiter, supplied the first detailed photos of the rings of Uranus and Neptune, and exposed features in Saturn’s rings.
To save energy and memory, their cameras are turned off, yet they are still transmitting back data that is inaccessible elsewhere.
NASA scientists had to remotely resolve the issue because the spacecraft was almost 15 billion miles away from Earth and all of this data was stuck on board.
In March, the staff at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California verified that one of Voyager 1’s three onboard computers was malfunctioning. The flight data subsystem computer is in charge of encapsulating the data before returning it to Earth.
One chip in the computer had malfunctioned; it contained a portion of the program. The data could not be used without that code.
There was nothing the engineers could do about it. Rather, on April 18, they divided the code remotely among other computer components.
They were left to see if their repair had been successful.
A radio transmission takes around twenty-two and a half hours to reach Voyager 1, and it takes a further twenty-two and a half hours to receive a response.
Good news arrived for the squad on April 20. They were able to verify the health and status of Voyager 1 for the first time in five months since they had regained communication with it.
They’re going to now adjust the remainder of the computer so that it can start.
As Voyager 2 continues to operate smoothly, it is approaching a star known as Ross 248. In about 40,000 years, it will come close to it by 1.7 light years.
In 38,200 years, Voyager 1 will nearly reach a star in the Little Dipper constellation.
