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Voyager 1, The Spacecraft That’s Been Traveling Through Space For 46 Years, Sends Data To Earth After Months
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Voyager 1, The Spacecraft That’s Been Traveling Through Space For 46 Years, Sends Data To Earth After Months

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NASA engineers had good news to share after receiving decipherable data from Voyager 1 for the first time in months.

The space agency has been working for the past five months to fix an issue with the device that is currently about 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away from Earth. On Monday, April 22, the space agency was able to announce that they succeeded in checking “the health and status of the most distant human-made object in existence.”

“Today was a great day for Voyager 1,” Linda Spilker, Voyager project scientist at JPL, said in a statement, as quoted by CNN. “We’re back in communication with the spacecraft. And we look forward to getting science data back.”

The 46-year-old spaceship stopped sending readable data back to Earth on November 14, 2023. Controllers could tell that the spaceship was receiving their command, but the system was stuck in a loop of sending an indecipherable pattern of code back.

NASA shared an important update about Voyager 1, “the most distant human-made object in existence”

Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The engineering team discovered in March that the problem was with a crucial chip inside one of the spacecraft’s three onboard computers called the flight data subsystem (FDS). It is the FDS that is responsible for packaging the data before it is shot back to Earth.

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“The team discovered that a single chip responsible for storing a portion of the FDS memory — including some of the FDS computer’s software code — isn’t working,” NASA said in its statement.

The space agency then ingeniously crafted a coding solution that successfully navigated through the 46-year-old computer system and restored the proper receiving of data from Voyager 1.

“For the first time since November, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems,” NASA happily announced in the Monday statement. “The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again. The probe and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space (the space between stars).”

After about five months of not receiving decipherable data from Voyager 1, the controllers managed to fix the issue and restore proper communication

Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 is a pioneering space probe currently making its way through interstellar space. It is the human-made object that is the farthest away from the Earth and continues to transmit valuable data back to scientists, offering a peek into the outer reaches of our solar system and beyond.

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As both the voyagers travel through space, scientists have encountered problems with communication in the past as well. There was a seven-month period in 2020 when the team at NASA was not receiving communication from Voyager 2. But issues such as these have been dealt with along the way.

“We never know for sure what’s going to happen with the Voyagers, but it constantly amazes me when they just keep going,” Voyager Project Manager Suzanne Dodd was quoted saying. “We’ve had many anomalies, and they are getting harder. But we’ve been fortunate so far to recover from them. And the mission keeps going. And younger engineers are coming onto the Voyager team and contributing their knowledge to keep the mission going.”

Space enthusiasts were ecstatic to hear the update, as the spaceship can now continue sending vital insights from the outer reaches of the solar system and beyond

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Binitha Jacob

Binitha Jacob

Writer, BoredPanda staff

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Working as a writer for Bored Panda offers an added layer of excitement. By afternoon, I'm fully immersed in the whirlwind of celebrity drama, and by evening, I'm navigating through the bustling universe of likes, shares, and clicks. This role not only allows me to delve into the fascinating world of pop culture but also lets me do what I love: weave words together and tell other people's captivating stories to the world

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Binitha Jacob

Binitha Jacob

Writer, BoredPanda staff

Working as a writer for Bored Panda offers an added layer of excitement. By afternoon, I'm fully immersed in the whirlwind of celebrity drama, and by evening, I'm navigating through the bustling universe of likes, shares, and clicks. This role not only allows me to delve into the fascinating world of pop culture but also lets me do what I love: weave words together and tell other people's captivating stories to the world

Karina Babenok

Karina Babenok

Author, BoredPanda staff

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As a visual editor in the News team, I look for the most interesting pictures and comments to make each post interesting and informative through images, so that you aren't reading only blocks of text. I joined Bored Panda not that long ago, but in this short amount of time I have covered a wide range of topics: from true crime to Taylor Swift memes (my search history is very questionable because of that).In my freetime, I enjoy spending time at the gym, gaming, binging Great British Bake Off and adding yet another tattoo artist that I would love to get a tattoo from to my pinterest board.

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Karina Babenok

Karina Babenok

Author, BoredPanda staff

As a visual editor in the News team, I look for the most interesting pictures and comments to make each post interesting and informative through images, so that you aren't reading only blocks of text. I joined Bored Panda not that long ago, but in this short amount of time I have covered a wide range of topics: from true crime to Taylor Swift memes (my search history is very questionable because of that).In my freetime, I enjoy spending time at the gym, gaming, binging Great British Bake Off and adding yet another tattoo artist that I would love to get a tattoo from to my pinterest board.

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John L
Community Member
7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'm still waiting for V'ger to come back saying, "We think you lost this"....

Major Harris
Community Member
7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

but, in the future, it merge with an alien probe and expand and find it's creator. then, it will return in about 250 years and it will be up to the u.s.s. enterprise to stop it!

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John L
Community Member
7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'm still waiting for V'ger to come back saying, "We think you lost this"....

Major Harris
Community Member
7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

but, in the future, it merge with an alien probe and expand and find it's creator. then, it will return in about 250 years and it will be up to the u.s.s. enterprise to stop it!

Load More Comments
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