NASA engineers have successfully reestablished contact with Voyager 1, receiving decipherable data from the spacecraft for the first time in five months.
This breakthrough follows a creative solution implemented by the engineering team to address a communication glitch with humanity's most distant spacecraft.
Voyager 1, which is now about 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, has been operational for 46 years. In recent years, the probe has displayed signs of aging, and the most recent problem surfaced in November 2023 when its telemetry modulation unit began transmitting an indecipherable, repeating pattern of code.
After months of silence, NASA engineers have once again received clear data from Voyager 1, thanks to an inventive fix for a communication problem on humanity's farthest-reaching spacecraft.
Voyager 1 is now around 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away from Earth, and at 46 years old, the probe has been exhibiting various quirks typical of its age. The latest issue arose in November 2023, when the telemetry modulation unit in its flight data system began transmitting a repeating pattern of indecipherable code.
This telemetry unit gathers data from Voyager 1's scientific instruments, along with engineering information that indicates the spacecraft's health status. Typically, mission control receives this data as a binary code of ones and zeroes.
Since November, however, the flight data system had been caught in a loop, continuously sending out garbled code. Although Voyager 1's radio signal remained steady, it contained no usable data.
The breakthrough came on April 20, when the mission team received the first coherent data from Voyager 1's engineering systems. Although the team is still analyzing the information, early results suggest that the probe is in good health and operating correctly.
"Today was a great day for Voyager 1," said Linda Spilker, Voyager project scientist at JPL, in a statement on Saturday. "We’re back in communication with the spacecraft. And we look forward to getting science data back."
The breakthrough came as the result of a clever bit of trial and error and the unraveling of a mystery that led the team to a single chip.
To address the problem, the team sent commands to restart the computer system and explore the source of the issue. On March 1, they issued a command called a "poke" to prompt Voyager 1's flight data system to run different software sequences, aiming to identify the glitch's cause.
By March 3, the team noticed some distinguishable activity within the otherwise garbled data from the flight data system. This atypical signal, decoded by a NASA Deep Space Network engineer, revealed the system's memory readout. The Deep Space Network, which includes radio antennae on Earth, facilitates communication with distant spacecraft like Voyager 1.
Upon examining the decoded readout, engineers found that 3% of the flight data system's memory was corrupted. A single chip responsible for storing some of the computer's software code appeared to be malfunctioning. The chip failure might have been due to wear and tear or an energetic particle strike from space. This corruption rendered Voyager 1's science and engineering data unusable.
After identifying the communication issue with Voyager 1, NASA's mission team had to troubleshoot from billions of miles away. The challenge was significant: the spacecraft is approximately 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, and a round-trip radio signal takes about 45 hours.
To address the problem, the team sent commands to restart the computer system and explore the source of the issue. On March 1, they issued a command called a "poke" to prompt Voyager 1's flight data system to run different software sequences, aiming to identify the glitch's cause.
By March 3, the team noticed some distinguishable activity within the otherwise garbled data from the flight data system. This atypical signal, decoded by a NASA Deep Space Network engineer, revealed the system's memory readout. The Deep Space Network, which includes radio antennae on Earth, facilitates communication with distant spacecraft like Voyager 1.
Upon examining the decoded readout, engineers found that 3% of the flight data system's memory was corrupted. A single chip responsible for storing some of the computer's software code appeared to be malfunctioning. The chip failure might have been due to wear and tear or an energetic particle strike from space. This corruption rendered Voyager 1's science and engineering data unusable.
Because the chip couldn't be repaired, the mission team devised a workaround. They decided to relocate the corrupted code from the faulty chip to other parts of the flight data system's memory. While there wasn't enough contiguous space for the entire code, the team split it into smaller sections, storing them in various locations. This solution required ensuring the modified code still worked as a whole, including updating references to the old code locations across the flight data system.
On April 18, NASA engineers sent a command to move the critical code to its new locations within the system's memory. Given Voyager 1's distance, the team had to wait 45 hours for a full round-trip signal.
By April 20, Voyager 1 responded, indicating the code relocation was successful, allowing the team to finally receive readable engineering data again. The creative solution was a significant step toward restoring proper communication with the spacecraft, reinforcing NASA's ingenuity in managing aging space technology.
Because the chip couldn't be repaired, the mission team devised a workaround. They decided to relocate the corrupted code from the faulty chip to other parts of the flight data system's memory. While there wasn't enough contiguous space for the entire code, the team split it into smaller sections, storing them in various locations. This solution required ensuring the modified code still worked as a whole, including updating references to the old code locations across the flight data system.
On April 18, NASA engineers sent a command to move the critical code to its new locations within the system's memory. Given Voyager 1's distance, the team had to wait 45 hours for a full round-trip signal.
By April 20, Voyager 1 responded, indicating the code relocation was successful, allowing the team to finally receive readable engineering data again. The creative solution was a significant step toward restoring proper communication with the spacecraft, reinforcing NASA's ingenuity in managing aging space technology.
