Voyager 1 has been in space for nearly 45 years. Recently, scientists have noticed that it has started sending incomprehensible information about her location.
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Voyager 1 was launched into space in 1977. Its task was to study Jupiter, Saturn and the moons of these planets. After nearly 45 years in space, the spacecraft suffered a kind of failure that left scientists consternation.
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Voyager 1 began sending unintelligible data to the ground. Suzanne Dodd, Project Manager of the Voyager program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, quoted According to engadget.com journalists, the timing of the probe failure is not surprising. It has been in space for much longer than the mission planners planned. In addition, it is in a high-radiation environment where no spaceship has flown before.
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Voyager 1 may find it difficult to solve the problem of sending unintelligible messages, as it is now more than 23 billion kilometers from Earth. The probe is currently about three times as far away from our planet as it is from Pluto.
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Voyager 1 is the first man-made object to leave the Solar System. Light takes 20 hours and 33 minutes to travel that distance. Two-way communication with the probe therefore takes about two days.
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Suzanne Dodd says NASA is likely to be able to fix the bug programmatically, but at this point in time we cannot be sure. It will probably be necessary to make changes to the software or to one of the redundant systems.
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However, it is possible that the fault could not be removed. In this case, NASA will have to “adapt” to errors sent by the Voyager 1 probe.
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Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have been in space since 1977. Regardless of the ongoing failure, both facilities will soon cease to operate. They are powered by plutonium-238, which decomposes. According to the researchers, by 2025, none of the probes will have enough plutonium to continue working properly.
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Karol Kołtowski, journalist of Wirtualna Polska
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