Voyager 1, NASA’s oldest spacecraft, is sending information back to Earth for the first time since November.
Scientists managed to resolve a problem on the probe launched 46 years ago, after five months of silence.
On November 14 of last year, Voyager 1 stopped sending usable data back to Earth, although scientists could say it was still receiving their commands and otherwise functioning well.
It was first launched alongside its twin, Voyager 2. The two spacecraft are the only ones ever flown interstellar spacewhich is the space between the stars.
The Voyager probes are sending back new information about our galaxy. Since taking off in 1977, they have revealed details of Saturn’s rings, provided the first in-depth images of the rings of Uranus and Neptune, and discovered the rings of Jupiter.
Even if their cameras are turned off to save power and memory, they still send back information that would be impossible to obtain elsewhere.
With all this data stuck on board and the spacecraft more than 25 billion kilometers from Earth, NASA scientists necessary to resolve the problem remotely.
The team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California confirmed in March that the problem originated with one of Voyager 1’s three onboard computers. This computer, called the flight data subsystem, is responsible for grouping together data before it is sent back to Earth.
In the computer, a single chip containing part of the computer’s software code had stopped working. Without this code, the data was unusable.
The engineers couldn’t come and fix it. Instead, on April 18, they distributed the code remotely between different parts of the computer.
Then they had to wait to see if their solution worked.
It takes about 22 and a half hours for a radio signal to reach Voyager 1 and another 22 and a half hours for a response to come back.
On April 20, the team received good news. For the first time in five months, they were in contact with Voyager 1 again and could check the health and status of the spacecraft.
Now they’ll adjust the rest of the computer so it can start sending back more data.
Voyager 2 is operating normally and is heading toward a star called Ross 248. It will come within 1.7 light years of it in about 40,000 years.
Voyager 1 will almost reach a star in the constellation Ursa Minor in 38,200 years.