An illustration shows a Voyager space probe in space. The twin probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 … [+]
Not bad for a 46-year-old spacecraft. NASA’s Voyager 1 is back in action after a serious malfunction in November disrupted its scientific work for months. The probe is humanity’s furthest emissary in the exploration of interstellar space – the space between stars. That NASA was able to repair the aging spacecraft over such a long distance is a testament to perseverance and ingenuity.
Two of Voyager 1’s instruments are back up and sending back usable science data. “The mission’s science instrument teams are now determining steps to recalibrate the remaining two instruments, which will likely occur in the coming weeks,” NASA said in a May 22 statement. “This success marks significant progress toward restoring the spacecraft to normal operations.”
Voyager 1 is breaking new ground with its location and age. The probe is more than 15 billion miles from home. It takes more than 22.5 hours for a message from Earth to reach the probe, and another 22.5 hours for a response. That means troubleshooting is in slow motion. Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 launched in 1977, so the team is working with systems, technology and documentation that are decades old. Voyager 1 was the first man-made object to leave the solar system when it entered interstellar space in 2012. Voyager 2 took the same cosmic step in 2018.
Voyager 1’s plasma wave subsystem and magnetometer are sending usable data. The team is still working on repairing the cosmic ray subsystem and the low-energy charged particle instrument. That process could take weeks. “Kind of like when the power goes out and you have to reset all the electronics in the whole house,” the Voyager 1 team tweeted on X. “That’s basically what my team and I are doing now.”
The resumption of Voyager 1’s science operations was gradual. In late November, the probe began sending garbled data, and it took a while to find the cause of the malfunction. “The team eventually concluded that the problem was due to a small portion of corrupted memory in the flight data subsystem, one of the spacecraft’s three computers,” NASA said. “This system is designed, among other things, to consolidate data from the science instruments and technical data about the spacecraft’s health and status before sending that information to Earth.”
A gold record ready to be attached to a Voyager spacecraft, circa 1977. The record, The Sounds Of … [+]
After finding the source, the team began revising Voyager 1’s code. By the end of April, the probe was operational again. The resumption of scientific work by two instruments marks an important milestone in the recovery operation. Every day that Voyager 1 continues to function is a small miracle. NASA’s heroic efforts to find Voyager 1 will help scientists better understand interstellar space.
The spacecraft won’t last forever, but NASA hopes at least one instrument on Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 can stay operational until about 2025. Even when the science instruments are retired, the probes could still stay in contact with Earth for many years to come. And there’s still hope that Voyager’s Golden Record – a record full of messages from Earth – will one day be found by intelligent life outside our solar system. In the meantime, Voyager 1 is back in action while it still can.