Voyager 1 Is Back On The Air

Written by Stefanie Waldek / Andy Rowlands on June 18, 2024. Posted in Current News

The veteran space probe Voyager 1 ran into trouble last year, when a computer fault caused it to send unintelligible data to us

The fault turned out to be a silicon chip that had failed.

The Voyager team found a way around the damaged chip and partialy corrected it in April, then last week, full commuincations were restored.

Space.com takes up the story:

All right, everyone — we can all breathe a sigh of relief. NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is fully operational once more, with all four science instruments returning usable data to Earth.

The problems began in November 2023, when Voyager 1 lost its ability to “speak” with us. More specifically, it started sending to Earth unintelligible data instead of its normal 0s and 1s of binary code.

Of course, Voyager 1 is 46 years old — ancient for a spacecraft — so it wasn’t entirely a surprise that its health might be waning. And that’s not to mention that it’s in entirely uncharted interstellar territory, some 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth.

Voyager 1’s dogged team was determined to not only figure out what went wrong, but also to fix the problem. And they’ve succeeded! Controllers identified where the issue was located; the flight data subsystem (FDS), used to “package” data to be sent to Earth.

Further sleuthing revealed the exact chip causing the problem, which allowed them to find a workaround. After the team relocated the code to a new location in the FDS, Voyager 1 finally sent back intelligible data on April 20, 2024 — but only from two of its four science instruments.

Now, just two months later, Voyager 1’s remaining two science instruments are back up and running, communicating effectively with mission control on Earth.

Even if Voyager 1 had gone dark for good, however, the mission would still have been a resounding success. After it launched in 1977, its primary mission was to study Jupiter and Saturn — that was accomplished by 1980. (Its twin spacecraft, Voyager 2, went on to study Uranus and Neptune.)

But Voyager 1 is on an unstoppable path. Continuing its journey away from Earth, the spacecraft entered interstellar space in 2012, returning crucial data about this mysterious realm.

Now that Voyager 1 is back online, the team will continue to “touch up” the spacecraft to get it back in top form, including resynchronizing its timekeeping software to execute commands at the right time, as well as performing maintenance on the digital tape recorder that measures plasma waves.

Of the original 11 science instruments, only three are still operating. The 11 instruments are:

Imaging Science System. Used a two-camera system (narrow-angle/wide-angle) to provide images of Jupiter, Saturn and other objects along the trajectory.

On February 14th 1990, the cameras recorded their final images to create the Solar System Family Portrait. Instrument switched off in March 1990.

Radio Science System. Used the telecommunications system to determine the physical properties of planets and satellites (ionospheres, atmospheres, masses, gravity fields, densities) and the amount and size distribution of material in Saturn’s rings and the ring dimensions. Instrument switched off after crossing the Heliopause in 2012.

Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer and Radiometer. Investigated both global and local energy balance and atmospheric composition. Vertical temperature profiles were also obtained from the planets and satellites as well as the composition, thermal properties, and size of particles in Saturn’s rings.

During the passage of Saturn, the instrument discovered complex organic molecules in Titan‘s atmosphere. Instument switched off.

Ultraviolet Spectrometer. Designed to measure atmospheric properties, and to measure radiation. Instrument switched off in 2016.

Triaxial Fluxgate Magnetometer. Designed to investigate the magnetic fields of Jupiter and Saturn, the interaction of the solar wind with the magnetospheres of these planets, and the magnetic field of interplanetary space out to the boundary between the solar wind and the magnetic field of interstellar space. This instrument is still active.

Plasma Spectrometer. Investigated the microscopic properties of the plasma ions and measures electrons in the energy range from 5 eV to 1 keV. Instrument failed in 2007.

Low Energy Charged Particle Instrument. Measures the differential in energy fluxes and angular distributions of ions, electrons and the differential in energy ion composition. Instrument still active.

Cosmic Ray System. Determines the origin and acceleration process, life history, and dynamic contribution of interstellar cosmic rays, the nucleosynthesis of elements in cosmic-ray sources, the behavior of cosmic rays in the interplanetary medium, and the trapped planetary energetic-particle environment. Insrument still active.

Planetary Radio Astronomy Investigation. Used a sweep-frequency radio receiver to study the radio-emission signals from Jupiter and Saturn. Instrument swithed off in 2008.

Photopolarimeter System. Used a telescope with a polarizer to gather information on surface texture and composition of Jupiter and Saturn and information on atmospheric scattering properties and density for both planets. Instument failed in 1979 following the Jupiter encounter.

Plasma Wave Subsystem. Provides continuous, sheath-independent measurements of the electron-density profiles at Jupiter and Saturn as well as basic information on local wave–particle interaction, useful in studying the magnetospheres. Instrument still active.

Switching off instruments that would not be used in interstellar space has reduced the drain on the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators, and means Voyager 1 should continue to have enough power to operate the transmitter until around 2030.

Voyager 1 passed the Termination Shock in late 2004, and crossed the Heliopause in August 2012, entering interstellar space. This showed the Sun’s influence reaches out just over nine billion miles. As a comparison, Pluto is 4.6 billion miles away.

Voyager 1 is now just over 14 and a half billion miles away, or 156 times the Earth-Sun distance. After 2036, both Voyagers will be out of range of the Deep Space Network, and they will probably be commanded to power down before this.

In 300 years it will reach the Oort Cloud that surrounds our solar system, and take around 30,000 years to traverse the cloud.

About 10,000 years after that, it will pass within 1.6 light-years of the star Gliese 445, in the constellation Camelopardalis.

See more here space.com

Header image: Los Angeles Times

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