After five months of troubleshooting, NASA engineers have reestablished communication with the Voyager 1 spacecraft, humanity’s most distant object. The 46-year-old probe, which has traveled over 15 billion miles from Earth, stopped transmitting usable data in November due to a corrupted computer chip.
To fix the issue, the Voyager team had to remotely recode part of the memory in the spacecraft’s Flight Data Subsystem (FDS), one of its three onboard computers. They divided the affected code into sections and stored them in different locations within the FDS memory. References to the code’s original location also had to be updated.
The fix was no small feat, given the distance and the aging technology aboard Voyager 1. The spacecraft’s systems operate on a 1970s-era computer, and the repair required intricate command sequences sent from Earth, followed by an anxious wait for a response. This successful maneuver is a testament to the ingenuity and persistence of the Voyager team, who continue to manage the 46-year-old probe’s operations from billions of miles away.
On Saturday, April 20, the team confirmed their solution worked when they received the first status update from Voyager 1 in five months. The data showed the spacecraft’s systems are operating normally. Over the next few weeks, engineers will work on adjusting the rest of the FDS software to recover the probe’s ability to send back scientific data.
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 conducted a “grand tour” of the solar system, providing stunning close-up photos of Jupiter, Saturn, and Saturn’s rings. In 2012, it became the first human-made object to enter interstellar space. Though communication is slow due to the vast distance, with signals taking over 22 hours to reach Earth, Voyager 1 continues to provide valuable data about conditions in the space between stars.
For more detailed information about Voyager 1’s mission and its contributions to space exploration, click here.
