Voyager 1 is back: 46-year-old NASA spacecraft sends data from all 4 instruments after going dark for months

Voyager 1 is back: 46-year-old NASA spacecraft sends data from all 4 instruments after going dark for months

After nearly eight months, there is finally some good news! Nasa’s Voyager 1, which went silent in November 2023, is now fully operational again. All of its four science instruments are reportedly returning usable data to Earth.

Last year in November, Voyager 1 began sending unintelligible data to Earth in place of its usual 0s and 1s binary code.  Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977, and it comes with no surprise that the 46-year-old spacecraft may have begun malfunctioning. The spacecraft is in an entirely uncharted interstellar territory, some 15 billion miles from Earth. That is 24 billion kilometers!

However, Voyager 1’s team was persistent and determined to find out what was wrong with the spacecraft. Now, they have succeeded, and the controllers have reportedly identified where the issue was located - the flight data subsystem (FDS). The FDS is used to package data that is to be sent to Earth.

A deeper probe revealed the exact chip that was causing the issue and this has allowed the team to find a work around. After they spotted the code to a new location in the FDS, the Voyager 1 sent back intelligible data on April 20, 2024. However, this data was only from two of its four science instruments. Now, it seems the Voyager 1’s two remaining science instruments are running fine, and are communicating effectively with mission control on Earth.

According to experts, even if Voyager 1 went dark forever, it would still be deemed a successful mission. In 1977, when it was launched, the main objective was to study Jupiter and Saturn and this was accomplished by 1980.  Regardless, Voyager 1 has been on an unstoppable path, on a trajectory further drifting away from the Earth. In 2012, the spacecraft entered interstellar space relaying some crucial information about this deep realm.

Now that the spacecraft is back, the Voyager 1 team will continue to revive it which will include resynchronising its timekeeping software, performing maintenance on the digital tape recorder measuring plasma waves.

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