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This artist’s concept shows NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft entering interstellar space, or the space between the stars. After computer problems, Voyager 1 continued to send back science data, and further instrument recalibrations are expected soon. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Voyager 1, after overcoming a computer problem, continued to send back science data from two of its instruments, and plans to recalibrate the other two soon. This marks significant progress in the recovery of the spacecraft, which is more than 25 billion miles from Earth and requires more than 22 hours to transmit one-way communications.
OURVoyager 1 continued to return science data from two of its four instruments for the first time since a computer problem with the spacecraft occurred in November 2023. The mission’s science instrument teams are currently determining the steps to follow to recalibrate the two remaining instruments, which will likely be case. will happen in the coming weeks. This achievement marks significant progress towards re-establishing the spacecraft’s normal operations.
Progress in solving the problem
In April, after five months of troubleshooting since the initial computer failure, the mission successfully got the spacecraft to begin sending usable technical data about the health and status of its onboard systems, including science instruments. On May 17, the team sent commands to the 46-year-old spacecraft that allowed it to continue sending scientific data to Earth. Since Voyager 1 is more than 15 billion miles from its home planet, it takes more than 22 1/2 hours for light to reach the spacecraft and 22 1/2 hours for the signal to return to Earth. As a result, the team had to wait almost two days to see if their orders were successful.
Instruments begin to return data
THE plasma The wave subsystem and magnetometer instrument now return usable science data. As part of efforts to return Voyager 1 to normal operations, the mission continues work on the Cosmic Ray Subsystem and the Low Energy Charged Particle Instrument. (Six additional instruments on Voyager 1 are no longer operational or have been turned off after the probe’s flyby Saturn.)
Diagnosing communication problems
Normal operations were interrupted last year when Voyager 1 began sending a signal back to Earth that contained no scientific or technical data. The team eventually determined that the problem stemmed from a small piece of corrupted memory in the Flight Data Subsystem, one of the spacecraft’s three computers. Among other things, this system is designed to collect data from scientific instruments, as well as technical data about the health and condition of the spacecraft before sending this information back to Earth.
Long-term achievements in research
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, will celebrate 47 years of operation later this year. It is NASA’s oldest spacecraft, as well as the first and only spacecraft to explore beyond the heliosphere. Created by the Sun, this bubble of magnetic fields and solar wind pushes against the interstellar medium, an ocean of particles created by stars that exploded elsewhere in the world. Milky Way galaxy. Two probes flew over Jupiter and Saturn, and Voyager 2 also flew by Uranus AND Neptune.
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