For months, there was a emerging concern that we can have to mention farewell to the Voyager 1 spacecraft after it all started to ship again garbled knowledge. Now, in a unexpected twist, Voyager 1 despatched again a read-out of the Flight Knowledge Subsystem (FDS) reminiscence after a “poke” command, which each offers some hope that the spacecraft is in a greater situation than feared whilst additionally lets in engineers to dig throughout the returned reminiscence read-out for clues. Even if this knowledge used to be no longer despatched within the structure that the FDS is meant to make use of when it’s running as it should be, it’s however readable.
It used to be up to now suspected that the problem lay with the telemetry modulation unit (TMU), however has since been nailed all the way down to the FDS itself. This comes after NASA engineers had been updating the firmware on each spacecraft to increase their lifespan, but it surely’s too early to believe this as a conceivable explanation why. Now, because of the “poke” instruction – which instructions the pc to take a look at other sequences in its firmware in case a part of it’s been corrupted – engineers can evaluate it to earlier downloads to with a bit of luck determine the motive in the back of the FDS issues and a conceivable answer.
Impressed through this information of the decoded reminiscence obtain, Nadia Drake – daughter of Frank Drake – wrote about the way it impacts no longer most effective the engineers who’ve labored at the Voyager project for the previous a long time but additionally her personal ideas concerning the two Voyager spacecraft. Now not most effective do they shape an enduring reminder of her father and such a lot of of his colleagues, however the silence that might apply if we will be able to not keep in touch with those spacecraft could be profound. Nonetheless, this new hope is healthier than the sooner information about this plucky little spaceship.
Because of [Mark Stevens] for the end.
