The issue stemmed from a corrupted chip in probably the most spacecraft’s computer systems.April 24, 2024, 1:10 PM ET• 4 min readAfter greater than 5 months with out touch, NASA has in the end reconnected with Voyager 1, the farthest spacecraft from Earth.NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) mentioned Voyager 1 had now not been sending readable information again to Earth since Nov. 14, 2023, in spite of the spacecraft nonetheless receiving project controller instructions.In December 2023, the JPL introduced the issue was once with considered one of Voyager 1’s onboard computer systems known as the flight information subsystem (FDS). Engineers tried to restart the pc, however the issue continued, NASA mentioned.On the other hand, the JPL introduced this week that Voyager 1 had resumed sending engineering updates to Earth.Engineers pinpointed the issue previous this month, NASA mentioned: A chip chargeable for storing a part of the pc’s reminiscence had turn into corrupted, making the information unreadable. The workforce was once not able to fix the chip and determined the affected code had to be saved in other places within the FDS reminiscence, however no unmarried location was once sufficiently big to take action, the JPL mentioned in a unlock Monday.This representation supplied through NASA depicts Voyager 1. NASA by way of APThe workforce “devised a plan to divide the affected code into sections and retailer the ones sections somewhere else within the FDS,” the discharge learn. “To make this plan paintings, in addition they had to modify the ones code sections to verify, for instance, that all of them nonetheless serve as as a complete.”The code that programs Voyager 1’s engineering information was once the primary to be despatched to its new location on April 18. The JPL mentioned it takes 22.5 hours for a radio sign to succeed in Voyager 1 and some other 22.5 hours for the sign to come back again to Earth. When the workforce heard from Voyager 1 on April 20, they knew the repair was once a luck, the JPL mentioned.”Hello, it is me. – V1,” the X account for Voyager 1 posted on Monday afternoon.Over the following couple of weeks, extra parts of the FDS instrument can be relocated and the workforce will paintings to permit the spacecraft to start out returning science information once more, the JPL mentioned.Voyager 1 was once introduced in September 1977 underneath the Voyager program to check the farther planets of the sun gadget and interstellar house. Voyager 1 entered interstellar house in 2012 changing into the primary man-made object to go out the sun gadget.In the meantime, its dual spacecraft, Voyager 2, continues to “perform in most cases,” in keeping with the JPL. It reached interstellar house in 2018 and is the second-farthest spacecraft from Earth.
