voyager 1 communication system

NASA finds clue while solving Voyager 1's communication breakdown case

An outlier signal has brought ground control closer to decoding the troubling problem.

NASA engineers are a step closer to solving the communication problem that left the Voyager 1 spacecraft, which presently sits outside the solar system, unable to send usable data back to Earth.

In 2012, Voyager 1 became the first human-made object to leave the solar system and enter interstellar space . For 11 years following this achievement, the spacecraft dutifully sent data to ground control. This was data that detailed how space works beyond the influence of the sun. In Nov. 2023, however, Voyager 1's communications with ground operators stopped making sense. 

To be clear, however, Voyager 2 , which followed its spacecraft sibling out of the solar system in 2018, is still operational and communicating with Earth.

"Effectively, the call between the spacecraft and the Earth was still connected, but Voyager's 'voice' was replaced with a monotonous dial tone," Voyager 1's engineering team previously told Space.com .

The source of the issue appears to be one of Voyager 1's three onboard computers: The flight data subsystem (FDS). This computer, NASA says , is responsible for packaging science and engineering data before it's sent to Earth by the spacecraft's telemetry modulation unit.

Related: NASA's Voyager 1 glitch has scientists sad yet hopeful: 'Voyager 2 is still going strong'

The positive step towards solving communications issues between ground control and Voyager 1 came on March 3 when the Voyager mission team detected activity from one section of the FDS that was different from the rest of the computer’s garbled data stream.

Get the Space.com Newsletter

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

Voyager 1's messaging to Earth comes in the form of 1s and 0s, a computer language called binary code — but since the end of last year, this code has carried no meaning. Even the newly detected signal is still not in the correct format Voyager 1 should be using when FDS is functioning as designed, meaning the operating team was initially not quite sure what to make of it.

This changed, however, when an engineer at NASA's Deep Space Network , which is tasked with operating radio antennas that communicate with Voyager 1 and its interstellar sibling Voyager 2, as well as other NASA spacecraft closer to home, got a look at the code. The unnamed engineer was able to decode the outlier signal, discovering that it contained a readout of the FDS' entire memory.

Encoded with the FDS memory are performance instructions and code values that can change either if the spacecraft's status changes or if commanded to do so. Science and engineering data to be sent back to Earth are also locked up in the memory. 

The team will now compare this new signal, which occurred because of a prompt, or "poke," from mission control, to data that was sent back to Earth just before Voyager 1 started spouting binary nonsense. Finding discrepancies between regular Voyager 1 data and this poke-prompted signal will help the crew hunt for the source of the issue. The idea of the poke was to prompt FDS to try using different sequences in its software package and determine if the communication issue could be resolved by navigating around a corrupted or damaged section.

—  Voyager 2: An iconic spacecraft that's still exploring 45 years on

—  NASA's interstellar Voyager probes get software updates beamed from 12 billion miles away

—  NASA Voyager 2 spacecraft extends its interstellar science mission for 3 more years

Voyager 1 is currently around 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, meaning that solving communication issues can be a painstaking process. It takes 22.5 hours to receive a radio signal from Voyager 1, then another 22.5 hours to receive a response via the Deep Space Network's antennas.

That means the results of NASA's poke were received on March 3, and on March 7 engineers started working to decode this signal. Three days later they determined the signal contains an FDS memory readout.

NASA scientists and engineers will continue to analyze this readout to restore communication with the pioneering space mission that extended humanity's reach beyond the solar system.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Robert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.’s Open University. Follow him on Twitter @sciencef1rst.

SpaceX launches 21 Starlink satellites into orbit from California in sunset liftoff (photos)

Dying SpaceX rocket creates eerie 'dashed' line in new photos. What's going on?

I'm driving 6 hours through New York's Adirondacks to see the 2024 total solar eclipse from Potsdam. Here's why.

Most Popular

By Meredith Garofalo April 05, 2024

By Robert Lea April 05, 2024

By Elizabeth Howell April 05, 2024

By Stefanie Waldek April 05, 2024

By Mike Wall April 05, 2024

By Harry Baker April 05, 2024

By Jeff Spry April 05, 2024

By Robert Z. Pearlman April 05, 2024

By Alexander Cox April 05, 2024

• 2 Total solar eclipse 2024: Live updates
• 3 This Week In Space podcast: Episode 105 — Apoc-eclipse 2024!
• 4 Total solar eclipse 2024: Here's the national weather forecast for April 8
• 5 William Shatner is beaming in to see the 2024 total solar eclipse from Indiana (video)

March 14, 2024

10 min read

Voyager 1’s Immortal Interstellar Requiem

NASA is reaching across more than 15 billion miles to rescue its malfunctioning Voyager 1 probe—but this hallowed interstellar mission can’t live forever

By Nadia Drake

An artist's concept of NASA's Voyager 1, the space agency's venerable and farthest-flung interplanetary probe.

Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library

In the fall of last year, one of NASA’s most venerable spacecraft started beaming home nonsense. Its usual string of 1’s and 0’s—binary code that collectively told of its journey into the unknown—became suddenly unintelligible.

Some 15 billion miles from Earth, beyond the protective bubble blown by the sun and in interstellar space, Voyager 1 was in trouble.

“We’d gone from having a conversation with Voyager, with the 1’s and 0’s containing science data, to just a dial tone,” says Linda Spilker , Voyager project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing . By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

Spilker joined JPL in 1977, the same year that NASA launched Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2 , on what, in a way, was an endless odyssey: from Earth, to the outer solar system and ultimately to interstellar infinity . Today there are several billion people on Earth who have never taken a breath without the Voyagers in our sky, people who, like me, have only ever existed in a cosmos shared with these talkative twin spacecraft. But like people, spacecraft get old. They break down .

And all good things—and even great ones—must come to an end. After days, and weeks and then months of nothing but indecipherable binary babbling, Voyager 1’s earthbound stewards had to reckon with the idea that maybe, after more than 46 years, its time had at last run out.

The Voyager 1 team at JPL had traced the problem to the spacecraft’s Flight Data System, an onboard computer that parses and parcels engineering and science measurements for subsequent radio transmittal to Earth. One possibility was that a high-energy cosmic particle had struck Voyager 1 and caused a bit flip within the system’s memory — something that has happened more frequently as the craft navigates the hostile wilds of interstellar space. Normally, the team would simply ask the spacecraft for a memory readout, allowing its members to find and reset the errant bit.

“We’ve recovered from bit flips before. The problem this time is we don’t know where the bit flip is because we can’t see what the memory is,” says Suzanne Dodd , Voyager project manager at JPL, who, like Spilker, began her long career with work on the probes. “It’s the most serious issue we’ve had since I’ve been the project manager, and it’s scary because you lose communication with the spacecraft.”

Yesterday, the team announced a significant step in breaking through to Voyager 1. After months of stress and unsuccessful answers they have managed to decode at least a portion of the spacecraft’s gobbledygook, allowing them to (maybe) find a way to see what it has been trying to say.

“It’s an excellent development on Voyager,” says Joe Westlake , director of NASA’s heliophysics division, which oversees the mission.

In the time it will take you to read this story, Voyager 1 will have traversed approximately 10,000 miles of mostly empty space ; in the weeks it took me to report it, the probe traveled some 26 million miles. And since its communication first became garbled last November, the spacecraft has sailed another 10 light-minutes away from home. Voyager 1 and its twin are slipping away from us as surely as the passage of time itself. Sooner or later, these hallowed space-age icons will fall silent, becoming no more than distant memories.

And even among the space community, which of course loves all of its robotic explorers equally, the Voyagers are special. “They are incredibly important and much beloved spacecraft,” says Nicola Fox , NASA’s associate administrator for science. “Voyager 1 is a national treasure, along with Voyager 2 .”

As envisioned, the Voyager mission would exploit a once-in-175-year alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune to slingshot through the solar system’s sparsely charted hinterlands. Legend has it that NASA’s administrator sold the project to President Richard Nixon by noting that the last time the planets were so favorably arranged, Thomas Jefferson was living in the White House. Outfitted with nuclear power sources, the Voyagers were built to last—in utter defiance of the adage that what must go up, must come down. Neither was ever intended to make planetfall again; instead they were bound for the stars. And now, nearly a half-century later, the pair have become the longest-lived and farthest-flung probes ever dispatched by humankind. (Voyager 1 is the front-runner, with its sibling trailing close behind.)

Spilker was straight out of college when she started working on the Voyagers, eager to see the outer solar system through their robotic eyes as they surfed the rare celestial alignment. “I had a telescope in third grade that I used to look at Jupiter and Saturn,” she says. “I wanted to get up really close and get a look at what these planets look like.”

Between 1979 and 1981, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 zipped by the gas giants , returning stunning images of banded Jupiter and buttery Saturn and their bewildering collection of moons. Voyager 2 went on to scrutinize the ice giants: Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989. These were the first and only times anyone had seen each of these bluish ringed worlds up close.

“They were small little pinpoints of light, and now you’re flying close,” Spilker says. “And you see the cliffs of Miranda”—a bizarre Uranian moon—“and Triton, with active geysers going off.” (Nobody had expected to see an active icy world in orbit around Neptune, and even now Voyager’s 35-year-old image is still the best we have of that strange little moon.)

When the Voyagers left the realm of the known planets, each followed a different path into darkness: Voyager 1 arced up and out of the plane of the solar system, and Voyager 2 looped downward. Spilker also followed her own path: she went to graduate school and earned her doctorate in planetary science using Voyager data—not knowing that several decades later, after leading NASA’s Cassini mission to Saturn, she’d again be part of the mission that started it all.

“The chance came to go back to Voyager,” she says. “And I said, ‘Of course. I’d love to go back.’”

In the interim, as the Voyagers sailed farther from their Earthly harbor, teams shut down many of the onboard instruments, including the cameras. But the pair kept studying the space that they alone were visiting. Their main job was now to characterize the heliosphere—the solar-system-encompassing, cosmic-ray-blocking bubble formed by our sun’s wind and magnetic field. They would document the alien mix of particles and fields that pervade near nothingness. And maybe, if they got lucky, the twins would each escape the protective solar caul entirely to be reborn as true interstellar wanderers.

In 2012 Voyager 1 transcended this boundary , known as the heliopause, where the sun’s influence wanes. Before that scientists could only guess at what lay beyond this barrier and could only model how it shielded Earth from the harshness of the void. Now Voyager 1 could tell us directly about the stuff between the stars. Voyager 2 followed in 2018 , and Fox—then the new chief of NASA’s heliophysics division—was in the midst of the action.

“You’re looking at the cosmic rays going up and the solar wind going down, and it was one of those ‘oh, my god, this is so exciting’ moments,” Fox recalls. “I think of the Voyagers as one mission,” she says. “We’re putting all the data together, but they’re the ones that are out there. They’re the brave spacecraft that have left the protective bubble of the heliosphere and are out exploring interstellar space. It’s hard not to be excited by them.”

This wasn’t the first time Voyager 1 had started speaking an unintelligible language. In 2022, when the probe suffered an earlier bout of garbled telemetry, JPL engineer Bob Rasmussen was shaken out of retirement. The lab wanted to know if Rasmussen, who’d joined the spacecraft’s systems engineering team in 1975, was willing to have a think about the situation.

“I’d been happily retired for a bit more than a year at that point, with plenty else to keep me busy,” Rasmussen says. “But I like solving puzzles, and this was a tough one that I just couldn’t pass up. Cracking it took a few months, but the puzzle stream hasn’t slowed since then.”

Afterward, he stayed on-call. So last November, when Voyager 1 again started transmitting nonsense, Rasmussen was ready for more problem-solving. He was joined by a hand-picked team of specialists, and together they dove into the details for getting the ailing spacecraft back in action.

The problems were at least three layers deep. First, it takes a long time to communicate with Voyager 1. Traveling at the speed of light, the radio signals used to command the spacecraft take 22.5 hours to travel 15 billion miles—and 22.5 hours to come back. Second, the Voyagers are not exactly modern technology.

“Most things don’t last 46 years. Your clock radio and toaster aren’t going to last 46 years,” says Dodd, who started on the Voyager project straight out of school, then worked on other missions and is now back on this one.

Plus, many of the people who built and developed the spacecraft in the 1970s aren’t around to explain the rationale behind the designs.

And third, unluckily enough, whatever had mangled the spacecraft had managed to take out Voyager 1’s ability to send meaningful communications. The team was in the dark, trying to find the invisible source of an error. (Imagine trying to revive a stalled desktop computer with a frozen screen: you can’t see your cursor, and your clicks risk causing more problems—except in this case each input carries a multiday lag and could damage a precious, misbehaving artifact that is more than 15 billion miles away.) Perhaps the most vexing part was the team’s knowledge that Voyager 1 was otherwise intact and functioning as it should be.

“It’s still doing what it’s supposed to be doing,” Westlake says. “It just can’t quite figure out how to send the correct message home.”

Rasmussen and his colleagues set out to understand the spacecraft in as much detail as possible. That meant poring over the original design schematics, now yellowed and pinned to various walls—an effort that resembled “a bit of an archaeology dig,” Dodd says—and studying how past teams had addressed anomalies. That was tricky, Dodd says, because even though the team members could figure out how engineers solved a problem, they couldn’t necessarily discern the rationale behind various solutions. They’d send commands to Voyager 1 about once a week—usually on Fridays—and by Sunday, they’d hear back from the spacecraft.

“There’s suspense after each cautious move, hope with each piece that falls into place, disappointment if our hunches are wrong,” Rasmussen says.

Progress was slow. And as time crept on, the team grew more concerned. But no one was giving up, at any level of leadership.

“I will rely on the Voyager team to say, ‘Hey, Nicky, we’ve done everything , ’” Fox says. “We wouldn’t make any decisions until we knew that every single thing had been tried and tried again because we really do want to get Voyager 1 back talking to us.”

And then, in early March, something changed. In response to a command, instead of beaming back absolute gibberish, the spacecraft sent a string of numbers that looked more familiar. It proved to be a Rosetta stone moment. Soon an unnamed engineer at NASA’s Deep Space Network—the globe-girdling array of radio dishes that relays information from Earth to spacecraft—had learned how to speak Voyager 1’s jumbled language.

After translating that vaguely familiar portion of the spacecraft’s transmission, the team could see that it contained a readout of the flight data system’s memory. Now they face new questions: Can they find and correct the source of the mutated code? Can they learn whether the spacecraft is sending useful science data? Can they restore Voyager 1’s lexicon to its original state—or will they need to continue speaking in the probe’s new postheliopause patois? “The hope is that we’ll get good science data back,” Westlake says. “Thinking about something that’s been a constant throughout my entire career going away is really tough to think about.”

But either by glitch or time’s slow decay of radioactive power sources, the Voyagers will, of course, eventually fade away. Each year they lose four watts of power, and they grow ever colder. “Whether it’s this particular anomaly that gets us or one downstream, or the spacecraft gets old enough and cold enough —one day you’ll go to look for it and it has just stopped working,” Spilker says.

Like silent ambassadors or wordless emissaries, the Voyagers will keep sailing outward, still carrying us with them into the stars—“sort of like a message a bottle,” Spilker says.

Besides their science payloads, a fraction of each spacecraft’s mass was devoted to casting a cosmic message into the interstellar ocean from a lonely island called Earth. Mounted to each probe is a golden record etched with grooves encoding a selection of sights and sounds from our small corner of space and time. An accompanying stylus is positioned to play the record from the beginning, alongside a pictographic and arithmetic instruction manual.

The records are gold because gold is stable for eons, and they’re records because that was the best way to store a lot of information in the 1970s. Should they ever be recovered and decoded, the message will tell the stories of we humans—at least as envisioned (and in some cases performed) by a small group of folks that included my parents ( the late astrophysicist Frank Drake and his surviving spouse Amahl Shakhashiri Drake), astronomer Carl Sagan, documentary producer Ann Druyan and science writer Timothy Ferris. Those stories are imperfect. They’re filled with lopsided optimism and scrubbed of references to war, famine, poverty and most any other Earthly failing—a deliberate decision to hide the defects of our broken world. I know this because my dad, the record’s technical director and a pioneer in the scientific quest to find cosmic civilizations, told me about the hard choices he’d made in selecting the photographs. And I know it because my mom, who recorded the message’s Arabic greeting (“Greetings to our friends in the stars. We wish that we will meet you someday”), helped, too.

For me, as the Voyagers travel through space , they’re not only helping us understand the cosmic context in which we exist; they’re also bearing a memento of my parents into the stars. These spacecraft—and their gleaming paean to Earth—will survive for billions of years. Long after our world, our sun and everything we hold dear becomes unrecognizable, the Voyagers will remain, resolutely speeding ever farther from a home that no longer exists and containing artifacts of a civilization that once was.

That’s why, over nearly half a century, the Voyagers and their interstellar tidings have come to be bigger than the already audacious mission they were designed to accomplish. Their reach is broader. And their inevitable silence will be profound.

“The thought that they’re out there on their own and you can no longer communicate with them—it’s traumatic,” Fox says. “It’s sad. It’s really sad.”

How Does NASA Communicate With Spacecraft?

Watch this video to learn all about the Deep Space Network, NASA’s giant radio antennas used to talk with spacecraft at the Moon and beyond.

NASA spacecraft are exploring our planet, our solar system and beyond. How do they tell us what they find out there? Spacecraft send information and pictures back to Earth using the Deep Space Network , or DSN . The DSN is a collection of big radio antennas in different parts of the world.

The DSN complex in Canberra, Australia. There are at least four antennas at each DSN site. Image credit: NASA/CSIRO/Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex

There are DSN locations near Canberra, Australia; Madrid, Spain; and Goldstone, California. Those sites are almost evenly spaced around the planet. That means as the Earth turns, we never lose sight of a spacecraft.

A map of the world showing the three Deep Space Network sites. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

What do the DSN antennas do?

Spacecraft send images and other information to these big antennas. The antennas also receive details about where the spacecraft are and how they are doing. At the same time, NASA uses the DSN to send lists of instructions out to the spacecraft.

An illustration of a spacecraft sending information to and receiving information from a DSN antenna. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

How do spacecraft communicate with the DSN?

Our robotic explorers have a lot to do. The tools they use to communicate can’t be too heavy, take up too much room, or use too much power. Small antennas on the spacecraft can beam weak radio signals back to Earth.

The farther away a spacecraft is, the larger the antenna you need to detect its signal. The largest antenna at each DSN site is 70 meters (230 feet) in diameter.

Each DSN site features a large 70-meter (230 foot) antenna. This one, called the Mars Antenna, is located in Goldstone, California. Image credit: NASA

The most distant objects that the DSN communicates with are NASA’s two Voyager spacecraft . Launched in 1977, Voyagers 1 and 2 studied Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Today, Voyager 1 is exploring beyond our solar system in interstellar space !

Because the Voyagers are so far away, their signals to the antennas are very weak. In fact, the power that the DSN antennas receive from the Voyager signals is 20 billion times weaker than what is needed to run a digital watch! Engineers have figured out ways to boost those signals so they can be “heard” loud and clear.

In this video, the zigzag lines represent information passing between the spacecraft and the DSN antennas. Image credit: Screenshot from DSN Now/NASA/JPL-Caltech

What happens once the DSN antennas receive the signals?

Centers at each DSN site receive incoming information. Then, they send it to the Space Flight Operations Facility at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. There, the photos and other data are processed and shared with scientists—and the rest of us!

Here is a photo of the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This is the central hub of the DSN. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Related Resources for Educators

Space Communications and Navigation Kids Zone Educational Tool: Building with Spaghetti Lesson Plans Student Resources Exploring the Doppler Effect with NASA Decoding Space Images with the DSN Educational Tool: Cat video explained via DSN Invisible Network Podcast

Explore More!

Where does interstellar space begin?

Searching for other planets like ours

Play Galactic Explorer!

If you liked this, you may like:

The most distant human-made object

No spacecraft has gone farther than NASA's Voyager 1. Launched in 1977 to fly by Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 1 crossed into interstellar space in August 2012 and continues to collect data.

Mission Type

What is Voyager 1?

Voyager 1 has been exploring our solar system for more than 45 years. The probe is now in interstellar space, the region outside the heliopause, or the bubble of energetic particles and magnetic fields from the Sun.

• Voyager 1 was the first spacecraft to cross the heliosphere, the boundary where the influences outside our solar system are stronger than those from our Sun.
• Voyager 1 is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space.
• Voyager 1 discovered a thin ring around Jupiter and two new Jovian moons: Thebe and Metis.
• At Saturn, Voyager 1 found five new moons and a new ring called the G-ring.

In Depth: Voyager 1

Voyager 1 was launched after Voyager 2, but because of a faster route, it exited the asteroid belt earlier than its twin, having overtaken Voyager 2 on Dec. 15, 1977.

Voyager 1 at Jupiter

Voyager 1 began its Jovian imaging mission in April 1978 at a range of 165 million miles (265 million km) from the planet. Images sent back by January the following year indicated that Jupiter’s atmosphere was more turbulent than during the Pioneer flybys in 1973–1974.

Beginning on January 30, Voyager 1 took a picture every 96 seconds for a span of 100 hours to generate a color timelapse movie to depict 10 rotations of Jupiter. On Feb. 10, 1979, the spacecraft crossed into the Jovian moon system and by early March, it had already discovered a thin (less than 30 kilometers thick) ring circling Jupiter.

Voyager 1’s closest encounter with Jupiter was at 12:05 UT on March 5, 1979 at a range of about 174,000 miles (280,000 km). It encountered several of Jupiter’s Moons, including Amalthea, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, returning spectacular photos of their terrain, opening up completely new worlds for planetary scientists.

The most interesting find was on Io, where images showed a bizarre yellow, orange, and brown world with at least eight active volcanoes spewing material into space, making it one of the most (if not the most) geologically active planetary body in the solar system. The presence of active volcanoes suggested that the sulfur and oxygen in Jovian space may be a result of the volcanic plumes from Io which are rich in sulfur dioxide. The spacecraft also discovered two new moons, Thebe and Metis.

Voyager 1 at Saturn

Following the Jupiter encounter, Voyager 1 completed an initial course correction on April 9, 1979 in preparation for its meeting with Saturn. A second correction on Oct. 10, 1979 ensured that the spacecraft would not hit Saturn’s moon Titan.

Its flyby of the Saturn system in November 1979 was as spectacular as its previous encounter. Voyager 1 found five new moons, a ring system consisting of thousands of bands, wedge-shaped transient clouds of tiny particles in the B ring that scientists called “spokes,” a new ring (the “G-ring”), and “shepherding” satellites on either side of the F-ring—satellites that keep the rings well-defined.

During its flyby, the spacecraft photographed Saturn’s moons Titan, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, and Rhea. Based on incoming data, all the moons appeared to be composed largely of water ice. Perhaps the most interesting target was Titan, which Voyager 1 passed at 05:41 UT on November 12 at a range of 2,500 miles (4,000 km). Images showed a thick atmosphere that completely hid the surface. The spacecraft found that the moon’s atmosphere was composed of 90% nitrogen. Pressure ad temperature at the surface was 1.6 atmospheres and 356 °F (–180°C), respectively.

Atmospheric data suggested that Titan might be the first body in the solar system (apart from Earth) where liquid might exist on the surface. In addition, the presence of nitrogen, methane, and more complex hydrocarbons indicated that prebiotic chemical reactions might be possible on Titan.

Voyager 1’s closest approach to Saturn was at 23:46 UT on 12 Nov. 12, 1980 at a range of 78,000 miles(126,000 km).

Voyager 1’s ‘Family Portrait’ Image

Following the encounter with Saturn, Voyager 1 headed on a trajectory escaping the solar system at a speed of about 3.5 AU per year, 35° out of the ecliptic plane to the north, in the general direction of the Sun’s motion relative to nearby stars. Because of the specific requirements for the Titan flyby, the spacecraft was not directed to Uranus and Neptune.

The final images taken by the Voyagers comprised a mosaic of 64 images taken by Voyager 1 on Feb. 14, 1990 at a distance of 40 AU of the Sun and all the planets of the solar system (although Mercury and Mars did not appear, the former because it was too close to the Sun and the latter because Mars was on the same side of the Sun as Voyager 1 so only its dark side faced the cameras).

This was the so-called “pale blue dot” image made famous by Cornell University professor and Voyager science team member Carl Sagan (1934-1996). These were the last of a total of 67,000 images taken by the two spacecraft.

Voyager 1’s Interstellar Mission

All the planetary encounters finally over in 1989, the missions of Voyager 1 and 2 were declared part of the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM), which officially began on Jan. 1, 1990.

The goal was to extend NASA’s exploration of the solar system beyond the neighborhood of the outer planets to the outer limits of the Sun’s sphere of influence, and “possibly beyond.” Specific goals include collecting data on the transition between the heliosphere, the region of space dominated by the Sun’s magnetic field and solar field, and the interstellar medium.

On Feb. 17, 1998, Voyager 1 became the most distant human-made object in existence when, at a distance of 69.4 AU from the Sun when it “overtook” Pioneer 10.

On Dec. 16, 2004, Voyager scientists announced that Voyager 1 had reported high values for the intensity for the magnetic field at a distance of 94 AU, indicating that it had reached the termination shock and had now entered the heliosheath.

The spacecraft finally exited the heliosphere and began measuring the interstellar environment on Aug. 25, 2012, the first spacecraft to do so.

On Sept. 5, 2017, NASA marked the 40th anniversary of its launch, as it continues to communicate with NASA’s Deep Space Network and send data back from four still-functioning instruments—the cosmic ray telescope, the low-energy charged particles experiment, the magnetometer, and the plasma waves experiment.

The Golden Record

Each of the Voyagers contain a “message,” prepared by a team headed by Carl Sagan, in the form of a 12-inch (30 cm) diameter gold-plated copper disc for potential extraterrestrials who might find the spacecraft. Like the plaques on Pioneers 10 and 11, the record has inscribed symbols to show the location of Earth relative to several pulsars.

The records also contain instructions to play them using a cartridge and a needle, much like a vinyl record player. The audio on the disc includes greetings in 55 languages, 35 sounds from life on Earth (such as whale songs, laughter, etc.), 90 minutes of generally Western music including everything from Mozart and Bach to Chuck Berry and Blind Willie Johnson. It also includes 115 images of life on Earth and recorded greetings from then U.S. President Jimmy Carter (1924– ) and then-UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim (1918–2007).

By January 2024, Voyager 1 was about 136 AU (15 billion miles, or 20 billion kilometers) from Earth, the farthest object created by humans, and moving at a velocity of about 38,000 mph (17.0 kilometers/second) relative to the Sun.

National Space Science Data Center: Voyager 1

A library of technical details and historic perspective.

Beyond Earth: A Chronicle of Deep Space Exploration

A comprehensive history of missions sent to explore beyond Earth.

Discover More Topics From NASA

Our Solar System

NASA Engineers Make Progress Toward Understanding Voyager 1 Issue

Editor’s note: This blog post was originally published March 13, 2024, on NASA’s Sun Spot blog . Future Voyager blog posts will appear here, on NASA’s Voyager blog.

Since November 2023, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has been sending a steady radio signal to Earth, but the signal does not contain usable data. The source of the issue appears to be with one of three onboard computers, the flight data subsystem (FDS), which is responsible for packaging the science and engineering data before it’s sent to Earth by the telemetry modulation unit.

On March 3, the Voyager mission team saw activity from one section of the FDS that differed from the rest of the computer’s unreadable data stream. The new signal was still not in the format used by Voyager 1 when the FDS is working properly, so the team wasn’t initially sure what to make of it. But an engineer with the agency’s Deep Space Network, which operates the radio antennas that communicate with both Voyagers and other spacecraft traveling to the Moon and beyond, was able to decode the new signal and found that it contains a readout of the entire FDS memory.

The FDS memory includes its code, or instructions for what to do, as well as variables, or values used in the code that can change based on commands or the spacecraft’s status. It also contains science or engineering data for downlink. The team will compare this readout to the one that came down before the issue arose and look for discrepancies in the code and the variables to potentially find the source of the ongoing issue.

This new signal resulted from a command sent to Voyager 1 on March 1. Called a “poke” by the team, the command is meant to gently prompt the FDS to try different sequences in its software package in case the issue could be resolved by going around a corrupted section.

Because Voyager 1 is more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, it takes 22.5 hours for a radio signal to reach the spacecraft and another 22.5 hours for the probe’s response to reach antennas on the ground. So the team received the results of the command on March 3. On March 7, engineers began working to decode the data, and on March 10, they determined that it contains a memory readout.

The team is analyzing the readout. Using that information to devise a potential solution and attempt to put it into action will take time.

News Media Contact Calla Cofield Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 626-808-2469 [email protected]

Engineers Investigating NASA’s Voyager 1 Telemetry Data

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, shown in this illustration, has been exploring our solar system since 1977, along with its twin, Voyager 2.

While the spacecraft continues to return science data and otherwise operate as normal, the mission team is searching for the source of a system data issue.

The engineering team with NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is trying to solve a mystery: The interstellar explorer is operating normally, receiving and executing commands from Earth, along with gathering and returning science data. But readouts from the probe’s attitude articulation and control system (AACS) don’t reflect what’s actually happening onboard.

The AACS controls the 45-year-old spacecraft’s orientation. Among other tasks, it keeps Voyager 1’s high-gain antenna pointed precisely at Earth, enabling it to send data home. All signs suggest the AACS is still working, but the telemetry data it’s returning is invalid. For instance, the data may appear to be randomly generated, or does not reflect any possible state the AACS could be in.

The issue hasn’t triggered any onboard fault protection systems, which are designed to put the spacecraft into “safe mode” – a state where only essential operations are carried out, giving engineers time to diagnose an issue. Voyager 1’s signal hasn’t weakened, either, which suggests the high-gain antenna remains in its prescribed orientation with Earth.

Get the Latest JPL News

The team will continue to monitor the signal closely as they continue to determine whether the invalid data is coming directly from the AACS or another system involved in producing and sending telemetry data. Until the nature of the issue is better understood, the team cannot anticipate whether this might affect how long the spacecraft can collect and transmit science data.

Voyager 1 is currently 14.5 billion miles (23.3 billion kilometers) from Earth, and it takes light 20 hours and 33 minutes to travel that difference. That means it takes roughly two days to send a message to Voyager 1 and get a response – a delay the mission team is well accustomed to.

“A mystery like this is sort of par for the course at this stage of the Voyager mission,” said Suzanne Dodd, project manager for Voyager 1 and 2 at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “The spacecraft are both almost 45 years old, which is far beyond what the mission planners anticipated. We’re also in interstellar space – a high-radiation environment that no spacecraft have flown in before. So there are some big challenges for the engineering team. But I think if there’s a way to solve this issue with the AACS, our team will find it.”

It’s possible the team may not find the source of the anomaly and will instead adapt to it, Dodd said. If they do find the source, they may be able to solve the issue through software changes or potentially by using one of the spacecraft’s redundant hardware systems.

It wouldn’t be the first time the Voyager team has relied on backup hardware: In 2017, Voyager 1’s primary thrusters showed signs of degradation, so engineers switched to another set of thrusters that had originally been used during the spacecraft’s planetary encounters . Those thrusters worked, despite having been unused for 37 years.

Voyager 1’s twin, Voyager 2 (currently 12.1 billion miles, or 19.5 billion kilometers, from Earth), continues to operate normally.

Launched in 1977, both Voyagers have operated far longer than mission planners expected, and are the only spacecraft to collect data in interstellar space. The information they provide from this region has helped drive a deeper understanding of the heliosphere, the diffuse barrier the Sun creates around the planets in our solar system.

Each spacecraft produces about 4 fewer watts of electrical power a year, limiting the number of systems the craft can run. The mission engineering team has switched off various subsystems and heaters in order to reserve power for science instruments and critical systems. No science instruments have been turned off yet as a result of the diminishing power, and the Voyager team is working to keep the two spacecraft operating and returning unique science beyond 2025.

While the engineers continue to work at solving the mystery that Voyager 1 has presented them, the mission’s scientists will continue to make the most of the data coming down from the spacecraft’s unique vantage point.

More About the Mission

The Voyager spacecraft were built by JPL, which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/voyager

News Media Contact

Calla Cofield

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

626-808-2469

[email protected]

14.6 billion miles away, NASA gets Voyager 1 talking again — and discovers a new mystery

That’s some repair job.

NASA’s Voyager 1 is on a fraught and unknowable journey into deep space. Some 14.6 billion miles from Earth, it and its sister craft, Voyager 2, are the furthest human-made objects from our planet, having made it beyond the edges of the Solar System and out into the interstellar medium. At such distances, anything can go wrong. Add to that the fact that these are old craft: The Voyagers launched in the 1970s. So when Voyager 1 started to send home weird, garbled nonsense instead of telemetry data in May of this year , NASA engineers might have been forgiven for calling it a day and pouring one out for perhaps the most successful space mission of all time.

But that’s not how NASA works . Instead, they started working on a remote diagnosis and fix for the record-breaking spacecraft. Now, some four months later, they are triumphant. Voyager 1 is back online and communicating perfectly with ground control as if it never happened. In fact, the fix turned out to be relatively simple — or as simple as anything can be with a 22-hour communications lag in each direction and billions of miles of space in between.

What happened to Voyager 1?

The high-gain antenna, shown on the left in this illustration, is how Voyager 1 sends and receives radio communications with NASA engineers here on Earth.

Cruising in interstellar space, the 45-year-old spacecraft appeared to be operating shockingly well and was transmitting reams of data back to Earth. But in mid-May, Voyager 1’s onboard system responsible for keeping its high-gain antenna pointed at Earth, known as the attitude articulation and control system, or AACS, started beaming home confusing jumbles of data instead of the usual reports about the spacecraft’s health and status. From our viewpoint, it appeared as if the spacecraft had developed something like an electronic version of aphasia — a condition that causes the loss of fluent speech.

“The data may appear to be randomly generated, or does not reflect any possible state the AACS could be in,” explained NASA in a statement from the time.

Even more bafflingly for engineers, Voyager 1 appeared to be in perfect condition despite the spacecraft’s bizarre status reports. The radio signal from the ship remained strong and steady, which meant the antenna was still pointed at Earth — and not in whatever configuration the AACS was claiming it was in to NASA in the reports. Similarly, Voyager 1’s science systems kept gathering and transmitting data as usual, without any of the same strangeness affecting the AACS. And, whatever was wrong with the AACS didn’t trip a fault protection system designed to put the spacecraft in safe mode when there’s a glitch.

Thankfully, NASA engineers diagnosed the problem. And with the diagnosis, they could employ a cure.

The fix — It turned out that the AACS had started sending its telemetry data via an onboard computer that had stopped working years ago. The dead computer corrupted all the outgoing data. All NASA engineers had to do was send the command to the AACS to use the correct computer to send its data home.

But there’s still a problem — The next challenge will be to figure out exactly what caused the AACS to switch computers in the first place. NASA says the system probably received a faulty command from another onboard computer. While they say it is not a major concern for Voyager 1’s well-being right now, the true culprit will need to be found and fixed to prevent future weirdness.

Voyager 1 lives on

Voyager 1 has yielded revelations about our Solar System no one could have predicted.

Currently, Voyager 1 is more than 23.4 billion kilometers or 14.6 billion miles (and gaining, most of the time ) from Earth. You can watch the distance grow and see both Voyager spacecraft’s current positions in space on NASA’s website .

For the last decade, Voyager 1 has been cruising in interstellar space, beyond the reach of our Sun’s magnetic field. The field had offered the craft a little protection from cosmic rays and other interstellar radiation, much as Earth’s magnetic field offers some protection from high-energy particles and radiation from the Sun. Cosmic rays are known to interfere with electronics here on Earth — when one of those high-speed energetic particles strikes a computer chip, it can cause small memory errors, which add up over time — and it’s reasonable to expect that to be an issue for Voyager 1’s onboard computers, too.

“A mystery like this is sort of par for the course at this stage of the Voyager mission,” said Voyager 1 and 2 project manager Suzanne Dodd in a statement dated to May.

“The spacecraft are both almost 45 years old, which is far beyond what the mission planners anticipated. We’re also in interstellar space — a high-radiation environment that no spacecraft have flown in before.”

We’ll need to wait and see what new perils encounter Voyager next on its travels — and what new discoveries await.

Subscribe for free to Inverse’s award-winning daily newsletter.

This article was originally published on Aug. 31, 2022

• Space Science

Rechercher sur le site

Si votre email correspond à un compte, vous recevrez un lien de réinitialisation.

Voyager 1 : il reste un espoir de réparer la sonde interstellaire

La sonde Voyager 1 a traversé tout le système solaire et est parvenue depuis 46 années de voyage dans l'espace interstellaire hors de la zone d'influence du Soleil. C'est déjà un immense exploit de se retrouver à 24 milliards de kilomètres et de constater qu'une partie des équipements continue de fonctionner malgré tout ce temps.

Ces derniers mois, la sonde a toutefois rencontré un problème de communication qui l'a conduite à envoyer des séries de 0 et de 1 au lieu des habituelles données de vol.

Que la force (du poke) soit avec toi

La bonne nouvelle était qu'elle semblait toujours être au moins partiellement à l'écoute des instructions envoyées depuis la Terre. Le problème avait été identifié au niveau du FDS (Flight Data Subsystem) qui n'échangeait plus correctement ses données avec le module de télécommunication.

Avec des instructions mettant 22h30 pour parvenir à la sonde et autant pour confirmer leur exécution, il restait difficile de corriger rapidement le problème, avec le risque de perdre complètement le contact avec Voyager 1 malgré une réserve d'énergie pas encore totalement épuisée.

Dans ce cas, la sonde continuerait indéfiniment son chemin à travers l'Univers et constituerait l'objet technique humain le plus lointain jamais lancé. Dans une dernière tentative testée le 1er mars, l'équipe supervisant Voyager 1 a envoyé une commande spécifique, ou poke , forçant le FDS à lancer différentes séquences de son programme dans l'espoir de contourner la difficulté (peut-être liée à une corruption mémoire) qui le conduit depuis des mois à envoyer les mêmes séquences de 0 et de 1.

Voyager 1 babille

Il a fallu attendre les 45 heures d'aller et retour du signal mais cela en valait la peine puisque l'équipe a reçu le 3 mars de nouvelles séquences de données, différentes de ce que la sonde renvoyait jusque-là.

Le message n'est toujours pas dans le bon format mais une partie de son contenu a pu être décodée quelques jours plus tard avec en retour l'état de la mémoire du FDS (les valeurs, les commandes et les données techniques), ce qui va permettre une comparaison avec les données avant l'irruption du problème, en quête de ce qui a pu changer depuis et faire dysfonctionner le FDS.

Cela laisse l'espoir de trouver une solution au problème de communication rencontré et de pouvoir de nouveau récupérer les données de vol et des instruments de Voyager 1 plus de quarante ans après son lancement.

Sur le même sujet

Commentaires, veuillez sélectionner un problème.

La discussion est réservée aux membres GNT

Commencez par créer un compte ou vous identifier

• The Contents
• The Making of
• Where Are They Now
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Q & A with Ed Stone

golden record

Where are they now.

• frequently asked questions
• Q&A with Ed Stone

Mission Status

Instrument status.

Where are the Voyagers now?

To learn more about Voyager, zoom in and give the spacecraft a spin. View the full interactive experience at Eyes on the Solar System . Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

View Voyager

Space Flight Operations Schedule (SFOS)

SFOS files showing Voyager activity on Deep Space Network (DSN)

2024 Tracking Schedule

2023 tracking schedule, 2022 tracking schedule, 2021 tracking schedule, 2020 tracking schedule, 2019 tracking schedule, 2018 tracking schedule, 2017 tracking schedule, 2016 tracking schedule, 2015 tracking schedule, 2014 tracking schedule, 2013 tracking schedule, 2012 tracking schedule, 2011 tracking schedule, 2010 tracking schedule, 2009 tracking schedule, 2008 tracking schedule, 2007 tracking schedule, 2006 tracking schedule, 2005 tracking schedule, 2004 tracking schedule, 2003 tracking schedule, 2002 tracking schedule, 2001 tracking schedule, 2000 tracking schedule, 1999 tracking schedule, 1998 tracking schedule, 1997 tracking schedule, 1996 tracking schedule, 1995 tracking schedule, 1994 tracking schedule.

• Science & Innovation

La sonde interstellaire Voyager 1 envoie des données "anormales", selon la NASA

En mission depuis presque 45 ans, la sonde actuellement la plus lointaine, aux confins de notre Système solaire, continue de bien communiquer avec les stations au sol. Mais les données de son système d'orientation sont incorrectes… Les équipes tentent de comprendre l'origine de cette panne.

Pour l'instant, la mission se poursuit.

Faites demi-tour

Ce sont quelques précieux octets qui voyagent et traversent notre Système solaire. À 23,3 milliards de kilomètres de la Terre (presque 4 fois plus loin que Pluton ), la sonde Voyager 1 reçoit et émet à intervalles réguliers de petits paquets de données. Une partie de ces dernières sont consacrées à la science, et une autre, aux paramètres « vitaux » de la sonde, alimentée par une vieillissante pile radioactive.

Grâce à sa grande antenne, Voyager 1 envoie ses données vers notre planète. Elles arrivent… 21 heures et 32 minutes plus tard, et doivent être déchiffrées par le réseau d'antennes du Deep Space Network. Mais, depuis quelques jours, certaines de ces données ne « collent pas », celles de l'AACS (Attitude Articulation and Control System, le contrôle de l'orientation). Selon la NASA, elles sont soit fausses, soit impossibles, soit aléatoires.

Des données mal expliquées

Ce qui pose question à la petite équipe qui s'occupe de Voyager 1, c'est que malgré les valeurs émises par l'AACS, elle sait que la sonde est bien orientée, sans quoi son antenne aurait été mal alignée vers la Terre et les messages n'auraient pas été reçus comme d'habitude. Et si Voyager 1 pointait « n'importe où », cela se serait ressenti dans les données scientifiques…

De la même façon, si la sonde ne reçoit pas les messages terrestres, au bout d'un certain temps, elle bascule ses systèmes internes sur un mode de sauvegarde, ce qui n'est pas le cas aujourd'hui. Pour l'instant, mystère, donc. Mais c'est ennuyeux, car comme l'explique le communiqué de la NASA : « Tant que le problème n'est pas mieux identifié, il est impossible de savoir si cela peut avoir un impact sur la façon dont Voyager 1 collecte et transmet des données. »

L'heure de la retraite ?

Avec un décollage en septembre 1977 et une électronique de bord efficace mais rudimentaire, Voyager 1 (comme sa jumelle Voyager 2 ) n'est pas éternelle, et les équipes de la NASA le savent bien.

Les données de ces dernières années laissaient penser qu'elle transmettrait jusqu'à ce que sa pile radioactive ne lui fournisse plus l'énergie nécessaire… Mais ce problème d'orientation, qu'il vienne du capteur, de la mémoire de la sonde ou d'un autre système, pourrait avoir de mauvaises conséquences. Il n'y a pas de raison de paniquer, les communications fonctionnent pour le moment, et avec de nombreux contrôles redondants, Voyager 1 est toujours là.

Mais, comme le rappelle la responsable du projet, Suzanne Dodd (JPL) : «  Les sondes ont survécu bien plus longtemps que tout ce que pouvaient espérer à l'origine les planificateurs, mais elles traversent l'espace interstellaire [hors de l'héliosphère, NDLR] , qui est un environnement riche en radiations et en particules énergétiques qu'aucun autre véhicule n'a pu visiter avec elles . » Et un environnement apparemment pas tendre avec l'électronique de bord…

Source : CNN

Eric Bottlaender

Spécialiste espace

Je suis un "space writer" ! Ingénieur et spécialisé espace, j'écris et je partage ma passion de l'exploration spatiale depuis 2014 (articles, presse papier, CNES, bouquins). N'hésitez pas à me poser v...

Je suis un "space writer" ! Ingénieur et spécialisé espace, j'écris et je partage ma passion de l'exploration spatiale depuis 2014 (articles, presse papier, CNES, bouquins). N'hésitez pas à me poser vos questions !

A découvrir en vidéo

Rejoignez la communauté des passionnés de nouvelles technologies. Venez partager votre passion et débattre de l’actualité avec nos membres qui s’entraident et partagent leur expertise quotidiennement.

Commentaires (29)

Recevez chaque jour le meilleur de l'actu tech dans votre boîte mail

Top app & logiciels

Sur le même sujet

• Ciel et Espace
• Sonde spatiale

Sonde Voyager 1 : d’étranges signaux interpellent les astronomes

La sonde voyager 1 est l’une des deux sondes lancées en 1977 par la NASA. Elle était destinée dans un premier temps à l’étude de Jupiter, de Saturne et de leurs satellites. Ainsi qu’à l’étude du milieu interstellaire. Voyager 1 et Voyager 2 ont été construite par le Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Le centre de recherche spatiale de la NASA situé à Pasadena en Californie aux États-Unis. Les deux sondes sont techniquement identiques. Mais Voyager 1 a été lancée sur une trajectoire plus rapide et moins courbée que sa jumelle.

#OTD 44 years ago, my twin Voyager 2 launched from Earth to tour the solar system. It’s incredible that we hold the record for longest lasting @NASA mission! You could say we have a thing for gold records. Catch up on four decades of space travel here: https://t.co/XwQF4ZBm9w pic.twitter.com/mrwOsYP0wr — NASA Voyager (@NASAVoyager) August 20, 2021

En 2022, la sonde Voyager 1 se trouve à plus de 23 milliards de kilomètres

À ce jour, la sonde Voyager 1 reste l’un des objets les plus rapides crées par l’homme. Elle traverse l’espace à une vitesse moyenne de 17 km/s. Ce qui lui permet de parcourir 1,47 million de kilomètres par jour ou encore plus de 536 millions de kilomètres par an. Depuis son lancement en septembre 1977, la sonde Voyager 1 se trouve actuellement à la distance fantastique de 23,3 milliards de kilomètres. En plus de son record de vitesse, elle est donc aussi l’objet humain le plus éloigné de la Terre à ce jour.

Lire aussi : Sondes Voyager : hors du Système solaire, elles découvrent un nouveau phénomène

D’une masse de 800 kg, la sonde spatiale Voyager 1 est alimentée par trois générateurs thermoélectriques à radio-isotopes (RTG). Ces derniers fonctionnent au plutonium 238 et fournissent 250 w de puissance électrique. Cette puissance électrique est très faible. Elle représente moins que la puissance d’un aspirateur ménager. Mais elle est bien suffisante pour faire fonctionner tous les instruments scientifiques embarqués.

Voyager 1 est équipée de quatre ordinateurs de bords ayant une mémoire totale de 32 kilooctets. Soit moins que la mémoire d’un seul téléphone portable actuel. Cette faible mémoire permet de faire tourner le logiciel qui gère la sonde. Ceci a aussi permis à Voyager 1 de ne rencontrer aucun problème informatique depuis sa mise en service il y a plus de quarante ans !

Les astronomes et ingénieurs de la NASA travaillent toujours avec Voyager 1 puisqu’elle envoie de nombreuses informations et découvertes très précieuses vers la Terre. À la distance où elle se trouve, soit plus de 23 milliards de kilomètres, il faut environ 2 jours pour que la sonde fasse parvenir ses données vers la Terre et pour qu’elle reçoive une réponse.

Deux jours pour envoyer un message et obtenir une réponse !

Depuis quelque temps, les ingénieurs ont détecté un problème apparu au niveau du système d’articulation et de contrôle d’attitude (AACS) de la sonde Voyager 1. Il s’agit d’un système qui gère l’orientation de la sonde dans l’espace. Ce système assure aussi la bonne orientation de son antenne en direction de la Terre. Ce qui permet de garantir un bon envoi des données et une bonne réception des éventuelles réponses.

L’ACCS de la sonde semble fonctionner parfaitement, mais ce sont les données télémétriques qu’il renvoie vers la Terre qui ne sont pas valides. En effet, les données de télémétries paraissent quelques fois générées de manière complètement aléatoire ou ne reflètent pas du tout la réalité de l’état dans lequel se trouve le système.

La sonde Voyager 1 dispose d’un système de protection contre les défaillances. Il lui permet de se mettre en mode sécurité lorsqu’un souci est détecté. Dans cet état, la sonde effectue uniquement les opérations essentielles. Ce qui permet aux ingénieurs de la NASA d’intervenir pour corriger les problèmes.

À son grand étonnement, le personnel de la NASA qui travaille sur Voyager 1 a remarqué que le problème apparu au niveau de l’ACCS n’a pas déclenché la mise en mode sécurité. De plus, le signal envoyé vers la Terre ne semblait pas affaibli. Ce qui signifie que l’antenne est toujours dans la bonne orientation.

Lire aussi : Entracte cosmique pour la sonde Voyager 2

Un dysfonctionnement normal vu son âge

La sonde Voyager 1 a presque 45 ans soit un temps bien plus long que celui prévu par les concepteurs du programme Voyager à l’époque du lancement de la sonde. Pour Suzanne Dodd, cheffe de projet au JPL de la NASA, ce dysfonctionnement est donc normal.

La longévité de Voyager 1 est d’autant plus exceptionnelle, qu’elle se trouve maintenant dans l’espace interstellaire au-delà de notre système solaire. Il s’agit d’un environnement violent, constamment soumis à d’intenses rayonnements susceptibles de dégrader les instruments qu’elle embarque.

Pour le moment, les techniciens et ingénieurs de la NASA ne connaissent pas la nature de ce problème avec l’AACS. Ils vont continuer à surveiller le signal afin de tenter de déterminer s’il provient uniquement du dysfonctionnement de l’AACS ou si d’autres systèmes sont impliqués.

Ils vont tenter de modifier le logiciel qui gère et pilote Voyager 1. Et utiliser éventuellement des systèmes de secours embarqués. Ce qui permet d’obtenir des données.

Ce n’est pas la première fois que Voyager 1 doit se servir de tels systèmes. En 2017, les ingénieurs ont dû basculer avec succès sur un autre système de propulsion. Celui-ci qui n’avait pas été utilisé de puis 37 ans !

Pendant que les ingénieurs de la NASA et du JPL cherchent les causes de ce problème, les astronomes continuent de travailler avec Voyager 1 et à tirer parti des données envoyées par ce pionnier de l’aventure spatiale, aux confins de l’espace.

Lire aussi : La Nasa a rallumé les moteurs de Voyager 1 après 37 ans d’hibernation

Sur le même sujet

La Chine construit une gigantesque « station spatiale au sol »

La toute première mission visant à sortir une fusée morte de l’espace vient de commencer

Comment tester un alunissage depuis la Terre

Voyager 1 : Une course contre la montre pour sauver la sonde spatiale la plus éloignée de l’humanité

Les futures voiles solaires pilotées par laser pourraient-elles rester stables ?

La sonde Juno capture de nouvelles images étonnantes d’éruptions volcaniques sur Io

Les abonnés lisent aussi.

La sonde indienne Aditya-L1 a rejoint l’orbite solaire

Un radiotélescope sur la Lune pour sonder la jeunesse de l’Univers

SOS spatial : la Nasa cherche à résoudre une panne de Voyager 1

Communiquer avec les extraterrestres : une deuxième opération “Message in a Bottle (MIAB)” en prévision ?

Des chercheurs simulent une plongée dans l’atmosphère des géantes de glace

Une possible seconde ceinture de Kuiper ? Une douzaine d’objets cosmiques au-delà de Pluton provoquent le débat

Reconnaissance faciale : cette application peut détecter vos maladies grâce à une photo

Variole du singe : « cette circulation de la maladie est complètement nouvelle ».

NASA engineers discover why Voyager 1 is sending a stream of gibberish from outside our solar system

Voyager 1 has been sending a stream of garbled nonsense since November. Now NASA engineers have identified the fault and found a potential workaround.

For the past five months, the Voyager 1 spacecraft has been sending a steady stream of unreadable gibberish back to Earth. Now, NASA engineers finally know why.

The 46-year-old spacecraft sends regular radio signals as it drifts further from our solar system . But in November 2023, the signals suddenly became garbled, meaning  scientists were unable to read any of its data, and they were left mystified about the fault's origins. 

In March, NASA engineers sent a command prompt, or "poke," to the craft to get a readout from its flight data subsystem (FDS) — which packages Voyager 1's science and engineering data before beaming it back to Earth. 

After decoding the spacecraft's response, the engineers have found the source of the problem: The FDS's memory has been corrupted.

Related: NASA's Voyager 1 sends readable message to Earth after 4 nail-biting months of gibberish

"The team suspects that a single chip responsible for storing part of the affected portion of the FDS memory isn't working," NASA said in a blog post Wednesday (March 13) . "Engineers can't determine with certainty what caused the issue. Two possibilities are that the chip could have been hit by an energetic particle from space or that it simply may have worn out after 46 years."

— NASA hears 'heartbeat' signal from Voyager 2 probe a week after losing contact

— Historic space photo of the week: Voyager 2 spies a storm on Saturn 42 years ago

— NASA reestablishes full contact with Voyager 2 probe after nail-biting 2-week blackout

Although it may take several months, the engineers say they can find a workaround to run the FDS without the fried chip — restoring the spacecraft's messaging output and enabling it to continue to send readable information from outside our solar system.

Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now

Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 zipped past Saturn and Jupiter in 1979 and 1980 before flying out into interstellar space in 2012. It is now recording the conditions outside of the sun's protective magnetic field , or heliosphere, which blankets our solar system.

Voyager 1 is currently more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, and it takes 22.5 hours for any radio signal to travel from the craft to our planet.

Ben Turner is a U.K. based staff writer at Live Science. He covers physics and astronomy, among other topics like tech and climate change. He graduated from University College London with a degree in particle physics before training as a journalist. When he's not writing, Ben enjoys reading literature, playing the guitar and embarrassing himself with chess.

The moon is getting its own time zone, White House memo to NASA reveals

Chinese space junk falls to Earth over Southern California, creating spectacular fireball

Antarctica is covered in volcanoes, could they erupt?

• TorbjornLarsson Bon voyage, Voyager! Reply
• Jay McHue What if aliens are doing it to try to communicate with us? 🤪 Reply

Jay McHue said: What if aliens are doing it to try to communicate with us? 🤪

admin said: Voyager 1 has been sending a stream of garbled nonsense since November. Now NASA engineers have identified the fault and found a potential workaround. NASA engineers discover why Voyager 1 is sending a stream of gibberish from outside our solar system : Read more

sourloaf said: What does FSB mean?

Rusty Lugnuts said: Where are you seeing "FSB"? The closest thing I can see in the article is "FDS". In modern computers, FSB would most likely refer to the Fr0nt S1ide Bu5, though I have no idea if a system as old as Voyagers, let alone engineered so specifically, would have an FSB. (apparently I can't spell out "Fr0nt S1ide Bu5" or my post gets flagged as spam or inappropriate??)

• SkidWard Just cut the % of ram needed... skip the bad sectors Reply
• kloudykat FDS = fl1ght da1a sub5ystem5 Reply
• 5ft24dave This is pretty old news, like 6 months old. Are you guys just now discovering this? Reply
• View All 9 Comments

Most Popular

By Laura Geggel April 05, 2024

By Elise Poore April 05, 2024

By Keumars Afifi-Sabet April 05, 2024

By Ben Turner April 05, 2024

By Sascha Pare April 05, 2024

By Patrick Pester April 05, 2024

By Daisy Dobrijevic April 05, 2024

By Joanna Thompson April 05, 2024

By Brandon Specktor April 04, 2024

By Ben Turner April 04, 2024

By Nicoletta Lanese April 04, 2024

• 2 James Webb telescope confirms there is something seriously wrong with our understanding of the universe
• 3 Error-corrected qubits 800 times more reliable after breakthrough, paving the way for 'next level' of quantum computing
• 4 April 8 solar eclipse: What time does totality start in every state?
• 5 2024 solar eclipse map: Where to see the eclipse on April 8
• 2 Giant coyote killed in southern Michigan turns out to be a gray wolf — despite the species vanishing from region 100 years ago
• 3 James Webb telescope confirms there is something seriously wrong with our understanding of the universe
• 4 Cholesterol-gobbling gut bacteria could protect against heart disease
• 5 'Gambling with your life': Experts weigh in on dangers of the Wim Hof method

• Mobile Site
• Staff Directory
• Advertise with Ars

Filter by topic

• Biz & IT
• Gaming & Culture

Front page layout

Hope returns —

Nasa knows what knocked voyager 1 offline, but it will take a while to fix, "engineers are optimistic they can find a way for the fds to operate normally.".

Stephen Clark - Apr 6, 2024 12:28 am UTC

Engineers have determined why NASA's Voyager 1 probe has been transmitting gibberish for nearly five months, raising hopes of recovering humanity's most distant spacecraft.

Voyager 1, traveling outbound some 15 billion miles (24 billion km) from Earth, started beaming unreadable data down to ground controllers on November 14. For nearly four months, NASA knew Voyager 1 was still alive—it continued to broadcast a steady signal—but could not decipher anything it was saying.

Confirming their hypothesis, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California confirmed a small portion of corrupted memory caused the problem. The faulty memory bank is located in Voyager 1's Flight Data System (FDS), one of three computers on the spacecraft. The FDS operates alongside a command-and-control central computer and another device overseeing attitude control and pointing.

The FDS duties include packaging Voyager 1's science and engineering data for relay to Earth through the craft's Telemetry Modulation Unit and radio transmitter. According to NASA, about 3 percent of the FDS memory has been corrupted, preventing the computer from carrying out normal operations.

Optimism growing

Suzanne Dodd, NASA's project manager for the twin Voyager probes, told Ars in February that this was one of the most serious problems the mission has ever faced. That is saying something because Voyager 1 and 2 are NASA's longest-lived spacecraft. They launched 16 days apart in 1977, and after flying by Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 1 is flying farther from Earth than any spacecraft in history. Voyager 2 is trailing Voyager 1 by about 2.5 billion miles, although the probes are heading out of the Solar System in different directions.

Normally, engineers would try to diagnose a spacecraft malfunction by analyzing data it sent back to Earth. They couldn't do that in this case because Voyager 1 has been transmitting data packages manifesting a repeating pattern of ones and zeros. Still, Voyager 1's ground team identified the FDS as the likely source of the problem.

The Flight Data Subsystem was an innovation in computing when it was developed five decades ago. It was the first computer on a spacecraft to use volatile memory. Most of NASA's missions operate with redundancy, so each Voyager spacecraft launched with two FDS computers. But the backup FDS on Voyager 1 failed in 1982.

Due to the Voyagers' age, engineers had to reference paper documents, memos, and blueprints to help understand the spacecraft's design details. After months of brainstorming and planning, teams at JPL uplinked a command in early March to prompt the spacecraft to send back a readout of the FDS memory.

The command worked, and Voyager.1 responded with a signal different from the code the spacecraft had been transmitting since November. After several weeks of meticulous examination of the new code, engineers pinpointed the locations of the bad memory.

"The team suspects that a single chip responsible for storing part of the affected portion of the FDS memory isn’t working," NASA said in an update posted Thursday. "Engineers can’t determine with certainty what caused the issue. Two possibilities are that the chip could have been hit by an energetic particle from space or that it simply may have worn out after 46 years."

Voyager 1's distance from Earth complicates the troubleshooting effort. The one-way travel time for a radio signal to reach Voyager 1 from Earth is about 22.5 hours, meaning it takes roughly 45 hours for engineers on the ground to learn how the spacecraft responded to their commands.

NASA also must use its largest communications antennas to contact Voyager 1. These 230-foot-diameter (70-meter) antennas are in high demand by many other NASA spacecraft , so the Voyager team has to compete with other missions to secure time for troubleshooting. This means it will take time to get Voyager 1 back to normal operations.

"Although it may take weeks or months, engineers are optimistic they can find a way for the FDS to operate normally without the unusable memory hardware, which would enable Voyager 1 to begin returning science and engineering data again," NASA said.

reader comments

Channel ars technica.

More From Forbes

Nasa discovers source of voyager 1 glitch in interstellar space.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

A NASA image of one of the Voyager space probes. Voyager 1 and its identical sister craft Voyager 2 ... [+] were launched in 1977 to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space. (Photo by NASA/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

NASA’s pioneering Voyager 1 spacecraft has a memory problem. The space agency has been troubleshooting the elderly machine since it began sending back gibberish communications in November. NASA hasn’t fixed Voyager 1 yet, but engineers now know what’s vexing the spacecraft.

The glitch paused Voyager 1’s science work and kicked off a long-distance diagnosis process. The team traced the issue to the flight data subsystem, a computer that talks to the spacecraft’s telemetry modulation unit to send science and engineering data to Earth. The data came back unintelligible. The culprit appears to be a single chip that’s part of the FDS.

The breakthrough came thanks to a “poke” NASA sent in March that prompted Voyager 1 to send back a readout of its FDS memory. “Using the readout, the team has confirmed that about 3% of the FDS memory has been corrupted, preventing the computer from carrying out normal operations,” NASA said in a statement on April 4.

Voyager 1’s position so far away from home creates a lot of challenges when it comes to fixing problems. NASA talks to the spacecraft over a distance of over 15 billion miles. It takes 22.5 hours for a radio signal to reach Voyager 1 and it takes an equally long time to receive a response. It’s troubleshooting in slow motion. It also means figuring out the exact cause of the glitch is mostly educated guesswork. It could be damage or it could be a matter of age. “Engineers can’t determine with certainty what caused the issue,” said NASA. “Two possibilities are that the chip could have been hit by an energetic particle from space or that it simply may have worn out after 46 years.”

There’s reason for optimism, though Voyager 1 won’t make a quick recovery. “Although it may take weeks or months, engineers are optimistic they can find a way for the FDS to operate normally without the unusable memory hardware, which would enable Voyager 1 to begin returning science and engineering data again,” NASA said.

WWE WrestleMania 40 Results Winners And Grades From Night 1

Wwe wrestlemania 40 results and everything that happened as the rock pins cody, wwe wrestlemania 40 results as jey uso defeats jimmy uso.

Voyager 1 has made an unprecedented journey across space. It launched in 1977 on an initial mission to study our solar system and visit Jupiter and Saturn. That was just the beginning. The resilient spacecraft kept on going and eventually entered interstellar space in 2012. It was the first human-made object to venture into the unexplored territory outside our solar system. Voyager 1’s twin Voyager 2 crossed over into interstellar space in 2018.

NASA turned off some of Voyager 1’s science instruments as the spacecraft aged, but the probe has still been returning valuable data on interstellar space. If a fix works, Voyager 1 will get back into the swing of science and write yet another chapter in an epic story of exploration.

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions