It’s now not on a daily basis that you simply get to replace the firmware on a tool that was once produced within the Seventies, and seldom is alleged instrument well past the limits of our sun gadget. That is then again precisely what the JPL staff in control of the Voyager 1 & 2 missions are dealing with, as they’re within the means of sending contemporary firmware patches over to those superb feats of engineering. Those patches must deal with now not handiest the perspective articulation and keep an eye on gadget (AACS) problems that interrupted Voyager 1’s verbal exchange with Earth some time in the past, but in addition save you the thruster propellant inlet tubes from getting clogged up as temporarily.
Voyager 2 is the present testbed for those patches, simply in case one thing must move flawed in spite of months of Earth-based checking, checking out and validation. As Voyager 1 is the furthest from Earth, its medical knowledge is the extra precious, however preferably neither spacecraft must pop out worse for put on after this repairs consultation.
The AACS fixes are extra of an insurance coverage, as the unique reason behind the problem was once discovered to be that the AACS had entered into an wrong mode, but with no transparent working out of ways this can have came about. With those adjustments in position, restoration must be a lot more straightforward. In a similar fashion, the adjustments to using the thrusters are quite minor, in that they are going to most commonly let the spacecraft waft just a little extra out of focal point sooner than the thrusters interact, decreasing general thruster firings and thus the build-up of subject material in those inlet tubes.
With those adjustments the antennae of each spacecraft must stay trimmed firmly in opposition to the blue planet which they left over forty-five years in the past, and permit them to confidently achieve that complete part century mark sooner than the ones people who’re nonetheless listening have to mention our ultimate farewells.
