Posted on 05/31/2024 2:51:47 PM PDT by Chad C. Mulligan
Voyager 1 is once again returning data from two of four science instruments onboard.
Things are looking better for one of NASA’s longest running deep space missions. After a several-month period of problems, engineers have announced that the Voyager 1 spacecraft is not only back online but also transmitting useful data from two of four science instruments. Work is now underway to bring the remaining two instruments up to operational status.
Problems began last November, when Voyager 1 suddenly began sending a repeating gibberish signal instead of the science and engineering data it typically sends. Troubleshooting on the 46-year-old spacecraft revealed the culprit: a memory chip in one of the spacecraft’s three onboard computers was corrupted, perhaps due to a strike from a speedy charged particle known as a galactic cosmic ray. The corrupted chip in turn prevented communication with one of the probe's subsystems, known as the telemetry modulation unit.
The Space Flight Operations Facility in Pasadena, California, which processes the signals sent from Voyager 1 as well as other spacecraft throughout the solar system, has changed a lot between 1964 and 2021. (Voyager 1 launched in 1977.)
Without the ability to replace the chip, the team instead focused on a software-based workaround, moving affected code elsewhere. A key challenge was to find space to move the code, because no spot was large enough to hold the entire affected piece. The team broke the affected code into pieces and relocated them to different positions in the computer, while ensuring the code could still function as a whole. Also, any reference points to the affected code needed to be updated.
The first test of this approach was to focus on code for the spacecraft's engineering data. That modification was done on April 18th. Voyager 1 is currently 163 astronomical units away from Earth, and a signal takes 22.5 hours (45 hours round trip) to reach the spacecraft. The team thus had to wait two days to see if the fix had taken hold. When they finally saw that it had worked on April 20th, they once again had access to the general status of the spacecraft.
Additional updates allowed the spacecraft to resume sending back science data on May 17th from two of its instruments. Voyager 1’s magnetometer and plasma wave subsystem are now back to returning useful data.
Engineers are currently working to get two other systems back online: the low-energy charged particle instrument and the cosmic ray subsystem. Six other instruments are either no longer operational or were switched off after the spacecraft’s Saturn encounter in 1980.
That’s cool. My son is an astronautical engineer. His first mission at NASA was scheduled to be a two year mission that launched the month he was born. 22 years later it was still active.
Actually it went dormant for a few years when a gyroscope failed. They managed to get it back active. It’s still operational.
What about the reports a mysterious AAA space truck arrived and someone did some repairs and gave it a jolt with booster cables?
🛸👽🛰️⚡
Voyager’s plutonium power source is slowly dying, too.
V’ger requires the information…
Way cool.
(I had to look it up- who he heck would know that?)
That’s awesome! Congrats to your son.
My dad led the team at GE that built the power plant on both Voyager spacecraft. I remember him working on the project when I was in college and him showing me videos of the collision tests to verify the fuel casks would not split open if the launch failed and spew toxic plutonium all over the ocean.
Dad would have turned 100 this year.
Traveling at over 38,000 mph.
Voyager 1 suddenly began sending a repeating gibberish, over and over again: The Voyager kept saying “My God, it’s full of stars”...
I literally 'L'aughed 'O'ut 'L'oud at this line'!'(LOL!)
Go V'ger!!!
Almost every other day I access Robert Zimmerman at https://www.behindtheblack.com.
He is a right-thinking space aficionado. Most of the articles and reports are about space, with timely opinions about wokeness and blacklisting of real scientists.
For instance, he mentions that the two Voyager spacecrafts are the longest continually running computers in history. There is much, much more on his website, including podcasts with John Batchelor.
Thanks for that. He’s also a pretty good songwriter...
Just capturing the measly 20 watt signal it sends from 15 trillion miles away is a feat.
But he can’t sing.
15 Billion——??
.
That’s Mars correct?
.
Tough little vehicle!
Zimmerman is an writer/editor for Sky and Telescope. Have read his articles pretty often there.
I was wondering how close it will ever get to any star systems. This depiction from wikipedia is a bit hard to read but sort of gets at that question. It will remain in interstellar space for a long, long time. Not sure any alien probes (if they exist at all) would detect it for a long time but who knows?
Amazing! You have reason to be proud of your father.
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