Over the last several months, the most distant human-made object has been in trouble: Voyager 1 was still in communication with Earth, but scientists were receiving nothing but binary gibberish. The situation looked extremely serious – so serious that might have spelled the end of the decade-long mission. But thanks to hard work, the team has now been able to understand the issue on-board and even find a fix.
For the first time since November 14, Voyager 1 is transmitting science and engineering data that can be understood. At the center of the problem is the Flight Data System (FDS), one of the probe’s onboard computers. This device packages all the data – from the onboard system or from the science systems – before transmitting them to Earth.
In March, the team sent a poke to the spacecraft and got back another weird message. But that time, it contained everything in the FDS memory, all of its code as well as science and engineering data. From that, they were able to understand the problem and find a solution: There is a single faulty chip that stores a portion of the FDS memory and some of its code.
We can’t simply repair a chip on a spacecraft that is 24 billion kilometers (15 billion miles) from Earth. So the team had to migrate the affected code elsewhere, and adjust the code so that the system would function and not end up using the damaged portion.
Given its distance, it takes a long time to get anything to the probe and back. Voyager 1 is 22.5 light-hours away. They sent the first fix on April 18, and on April 20 got a reply – and it looks like it worked. They had a clear readout.
This is extremely good news after months of challenging work and uncertainty. The team is at work to complete the full restructure of the FDS software. Once that is completed, Voyager 1 will once again restart its scientific mission collecting data from interstellar space.
Voyager 1 and its twin spacecraft Voyager 2 are the only two human-made objects to cross the heliopause, the region where the solar wind and the interstellar wind are in equilibrium. For years now, they have been traveling in interstellar space sending data back to Earth. And hopefully, they will continue to do so for a long time.
NASA’s planned budget for the coming years shows commitment to keeping the Voyager mission going well past its 50th anniversary in 2027.
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