Produced by: Tarun Mishra Designed by: Manoj Kumar
For the first time since November, four instruments on NASA’s Voyager 1 are transmitting science data again. The spacecraft measures plasma waves, magnetic fields, and particles in interstellar space.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) confirmed on June 13 that two instruments resumed operations immediately after a command was sent on May 19. The other two required additional adjustments.
The instruments were offline due to a computer malfunction in November 2023, which caused the spacecraft to return garbled data. Engineers identified the problem as a corrupted memory chip.
A team of engineers, known as a “tiger team,” rewrote the spacecraft’s software to bypass the faulty chip, restoring communication in April. This was the first software update made to a spacecraft in interstellar space.
Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, face declining power levels due to the decay of their plutonium-238 power supplies and degradation of thermocouples. Controllers have managed power by shutting down nonessential systems.
As power decreases, the spacecraft is becoming colder, posing additional challenges. Heaters that kept instruments and components warm have been turned off, raising thermal concerns.
Project scientist Linda Spilker hopes to keep Voyager 1 operational into the next decade. The goal is to maintain data collection until at least 2027, marking the 50th anniversary of its launch.
If Voyager 1 continues to operate until 2035, it will be 200 astronomical units (about 30 billion kilometres) from the sun. Currently, the spacecraft is more than 24 billion kilometres away.
The announcement of the data return came shortly after the passing of Ed Stone, Voyager’s project scientist from 1972 to 2022. Spilker honoured his legacy, emphasizing the continued rare opportunities for the Voyager spacecraft.