Voyager 1 (and Half Its Instruments) Are Back Online
Sky and Telescope | May 31, 2024 | David DickinsonVoyager 1 is once again returning data from two of four science instruments onboard.
Things are looking better for one of NASA’s longest running deep space missions. After a several-month period of problems, engineers have announced that the Voyager 1 spacecraft is not only back online but also transmitting useful data from two of four science instruments. Work is now underway to bring the remaining two instruments up to operational status.
Problems began last November, when Voyager 1 suddenly began sending a repeating gibberish signal instead of the science and engineering data it typically sends.
Troubleshooting on the 46-year-old spacecraft revealed the culprit: a memory chip in one of the spacecraft’s three onboard computers was corrupted, perhaps due to a strike from a speedy charged particle known as a galactic cosmic ray. The corrupted chip in turn prevented communication with one of the probe’s subsystems, known as the telemetry modulation unit.
The Space Flight Operations Facility in Pasadena, California, which processes the signals sent from Voyager 1 as well as other spacecraft throughout the solar system, has changed a lot between 1964 and 2021. (Voyager 1 launched in 1977.)
Yes, a lot has changed since Voyager launched. Now Dr. Fauci tells us that “repeating gibberish” is science data.
Doesn’t FJB have corrupted memory chips, too?
It now wants to be identified as “Vger”.
Everything was going fine until it spotted Planet X and started freaking out.