Most distant man-made spacecraft, Voyager 1, back online and functioning well

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is the farthest human-made object that has traveled away from the point of its origin which is Earth. After a long silence due to technical issues, the craft is back to normal, and all four of its scientific instruments are sending data to Earth.  

In November 2023, Voyager 1 started sending confusing data instead of clear information. This wasn't too shocking since Voyager 1 is 46 years old and is 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away from Earth. But the team at NASA was determined to fix it. 

They discovered the problem was with the flight data subsystem (FDS), which packages data to send to Earth. They found the specific chip causing the trouble and moved the code to a new part of the FDS. By April 20, 2024, Voyager 1 started sending clear data from two of its four instruments. Now, all four instruments are working again. 

Voyager 1's long journey

Even if Voyager 1 had stopped working, its mission would still be a huge success. It launched in 1977 to study Jupiter and Saturn, which it did by 1980. Its twin, Voyager 2, went on to study Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 1 has been traveling ever since and entered interstellar space in 2012, giving us valuable information about this unknown area. It was the Voyager 1 that was the first spacecraft to go beyond our solar system followed by the Voyager 2. 

What's next 

Now that Voyager 1 is working again, the team will do more maintenance to keep it in good shape. This includes fixing its timekeeping software and maintaining its digital tape recorder, which measures plasma waves. The hope is that Voyager 1 will continue its journey and send data for many more years.