NASA’s Voyager 1 Spacecraft Stops Communicating with Earth – Engineers Work on Solving the Problem

KOMPAS.com – NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is known to have stopped communicating with Earth.

Engineers are currently trying to solve this problem as the oldest probe explores uncharted cosmic space.

Also read: The story of Voyager 1, the oldest space vehicle still sending data before its death

Quoting CNN, Thursday (14/12/2023) Voyager 1 is the furthest spacecraft from Earth with a distance of around 24 billion kilometers. Meanwhile, its sibling, Voyager 2, has traveled more than 20 billion kilometers from our planet.

Both are in interstellar space and are the only probes ever to operate outside the heliosphere, the bubble of the Sun’s magnetic fields and particles that extends beyond Pluto’s orbit.

Both rides were originally designed to last five years, but in reality they are the longest operating rides in history.

Their extremely long lifespans suggest that both have provided insight into our Solar System after achieving their original goal of flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune several decades ago.

But Voyager’s journey was not without challenges.

Voyager 1 has three computers on board, including a flight data system that collects information from the spacecraft’s science instruments and combines it with engineering data reflecting Voyager 1’s current status.

Mission controllers on Earth receive the data in binary code or a series of ones and zeros.

And now it seems that Voyager 1’s flight data system experienced a problem that caused communication disruptions between the 46-year-old spacecraft and its mission team on Earth.

Also read: 40 Years of Exploring Space, Voyager Still Diligently Contacts Earth

The Voyager 1 problem

The mission team first became aware of the problem last November 14, when the flight data system’s telecommunications unit began sending back a repeating pattern of ones and zeros, as if it were stuck in a loop.

Although the probe was still able to receive and execute commands sent from the mission team, problems with the telecommunications unit meant that no science or engineering data from Voyager 1 was returned to Earth.

NASA engineers are currently trying to gather more information about the cause of this problem before determining next steps to fix it. The process can take weeks.

The last time Voyager 1 had problems with its flight data system was in 1981.

Now, the Voyager team wants to consider all the potential implications before sending out more commands.

Voyager 1 itself is so far away that it took 22.5 hours for commands sent from Earth to reach it. Additionally, the team had to wait 45 hours to receive a response.

As Voyager ages, it does experience unexpected problems and failures. In order to continue exploring the cosmos, the control team slowly turned off the instruments on the probe to save power and expand their mission.

Also read: Voyager 2 Leaves Solar System, Ready to Explore Interstellar Space

“Voyager has performed far beyond its primary mission and has outlived any other spacecraft in history. So while the engineering team is working hard to keep them alive, we also expect problems to arise,” said Calla Cofield, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. in Pasadena, California.

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2023-12-15 07:00:00
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