Voyager 1 stops communicating with Earth after computer glitch

Engineers are presently attempting to resolve the difficulty because the getting older spacecraft explores uncharted cosmic territory alongside the outer reaches of the photo voltaic system.

Voyager 1 is presently the farthest spacecraft from Earth at about 24 billion kilometres away, whereas its twin Voyager 2 has travelled greater than 20 billion kilometres from our planet.

Both are in interstellar house and are the one spacecraft ever to function past the heliosphere, the solar’s bubble of magnetic fields and particles that extends nicely past the orbit of Pluto.

Initially designed to final 5 years, the Voyager probes are the 2 longest-operating spacecraft in historical past.

Their exceptionally lengthy lifespans imply that each spacecraft have offered further insights about our photo voltaic system and past after attaining their preliminary objectives of flying by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune a long time in the past.

But their unexpectedly prolonged journeys haven’t been with out challenges.

Voyager 1 has three onboard computer systems, together with a flight knowledge system that collects info from the spacecraft’s science devices and bundles it with engineering knowledge that displays the present well being standing of Voyager 1.

Mission management on Earth receives that knowledge in binary code, or a collection of ones and zeroes.

But Voyager 1’s flight knowledge system now seems to be caught on auto-repeat, in a situation harking back to the movie “Groundhog Day.”

The mission staff first seen the difficulty November 14, when the flight knowledge system’s telecommunications unit started sending again a repeating sample of ones and zeroes, prefer it was trapped in a loop.

While the spacecraft can nonetheless obtain and perform instructions transmitted from the mission staff, an issue with that telecommunications unit means no science or engineering knowledge from Voyager 1 is being returned to Earth.

NASA engineers are presently attempting to assemble extra details about the underlying reason behind the difficulty earlier than figuring out the following steps to probably appropriate it, Calla Cofield, media relations specialist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which manages the mission, stated.

The course of may take weeks.

The final time Voyager 1 skilled an identical, however not similar, concern with the flight knowledge system was in 1981, and the present drawback doesn’t look like related to different glitches the spacecraft has skilled lately, Cofield stated.

As each Voyager probes expertise new trials, mission staff members have solely the unique manuals written a long time in the past to seek the advice of, and people could not account for the challenges the spacecraft are going through as they age.

The Voyager staff needs to contemplate all the potential implications earlier than sending extra instructions to the spacecraft to verify its operations aren’t impacted in an sudden manner.

Voyager 1 is so distant that it takes 22.5 hours for instructions despatched from Earth to achieve the spacecraft.

Additionally, the staff should wait 45 hours to obtain a response.

Keeping the Voyager probes alive

While the staff hopes to revive the common stream of knowledge despatched again by Voyager 1, the mission’s principal worth lies in its lengthy period, Cofield stated.

For instance, scientists wish to see how particles and magnetic fields change because the probes fly farther away from the heliosphere.

But that dataset will likely be incomplete if Voyager 1 cannot return info because it continues on.

The mission staff has been inventive with its methods for extending the ability provide on each spacecraft lately to permit their record-breaking missions to proceed.

“The Voyagers are performing far, far past their prime missions and longer than any other spacecraft in history,” Cofield stated.

“So, while the engineering team is working hard to keep them alive, we also fully expect issues to arise.”