NASA's interstellar explorer Voyager 1 is finally communicating with ground control in an understandable way again. On Saturday (April 20), Voyager 1 updated ground control about its health status for the first time in 5 months. While the Voyager 1 spacecraft still isn't sending valid science data back to Earth, it is now returning usable information about the health and operating status of its onboard engineering systems.
Thirty-five years after its launch in 1977, Voyager 1 became the first human-made object to leave the solar system and enter interstellar space. It was followed out of our cosmic quarters by its space-faring sibling, Voyager 2, six years later in 2018. Voyager 2, thankfully, is still operational and communicating well with Earth.
The two spacecraft remain the only human-made objects exploring space beyond the influence of the sun. However, on Nov. 14, 2023, after 11 years of exploring interstellar space and while sitting a staggering 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, Voyager 1's binary code — computer language composed of 0s and 1s that it uses to communicate with its flight team at NASA — stopped making sense.
Related: We finally know why NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft stopped communicating — scientists are working on a fix
In March, NASA's Voyager 1 operating team sent a digital "poke" to the spacecraft, prompting its flight data subsystem (FDS) to send a full memory readout back home.
This memory dump revealed to scientists and engineers that the "glitch" is the result of a corrupted code contained on a single chip representing around 3% of the FDS memory. The loss of this code rendered Voyager 1's science and engineering data unusable.
The NASA team can't physically repair or replace this chip, of course, but what they can do is remotely place the affected code elsewhere in the FDS memory. Though no single section of the memory is large enough to hold this code entirely, the team can slice it into sections and store these chunks separately. To do this, they will also have to adjust the relevant storage sections to ensure the addition of this corrupted code won't cause those areas to stop operating individually, or working together as a whole. In addition to this, NASA staff will also have to ensure any references to the corrupted code's location are updated.
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On April 18, 2024, the team began sending the code to its new location in the FDS memory. This was a painstaking process, as a radio signal takes 22.5 hours to traverse the distance between Earth and Voyager 1, and it then takes another 22.5 hours to get a signal back from the craft.
By Saturday (April 20), however, the team confirmed their modification had worked. For the first time in five months, the scientists were able to communicate with Voyager 1 and check its health. Over the next few weeks, the team will work on adjusting the rest of the FDS software and aim to recover the regions of the system that are responsible for packaging and returning vital science data from beyond the limits of the solar system.
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Robert Lea
Senior Writer
RobertLeais a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.’s Open University. Follow him on Twitter @sciencef1rst.
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11 CommentsComment from the forums
Robb62 'V'ger must contact the creator.
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Holy HannaH! Couldn't help but think that "repair" sounded extremely similar to the mechanics of DNA and the evolution of life.
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Torbjorn Larsson *Applause* indeed, thanks to the Voyager teams for the hard work!
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SpaceSpinner I notice that the article says that it has been in space for 35 years. Either I have gone back in time 10 years, or their AI is off by 10 years. V-*ger has been captured!
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evw Admin said:
On Saturday, April 5, Voyager 1 finally "phoned home" and updated its NASA operating team about its health. The interstellar explorer is back in touch after five months of sending back nonsense data.NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft finally phones home after 5 months of no contact : Read more
I'm incredibly grateful for the persistence and dedication of the Voyagers' teams and for the amazing accomplishments that have kept these two spacecrafts operational so many years beyond their expected lifetimes. V-1 was launched when I was 25 years young; I was nearly delirious with joy. Exploring the physical universe captivated my attention while I was in elementary school and has kept me mesmerized since. I'm very emotional writing this note, thinking about what amounts to a miracle of technology and longevity in my eyes. BRAVO!!! THANK YOU EVERYONE PAST & PRESENT!!!
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SpaceSpinner evw said:
I'm incredibly grateful for the persistence and dedication of the Voyagers' teams and for the amazing accomplishments that have kept these two spacecrafts operational so many years beyond their expected lifetimes. V-1 was launched when I was 25 years young; I was nearly delirious with joy. Exploring the physical universe captivated my attention while I was in elementary school and has kept me mesmerized since. I'm very emotional writing this note, thinking about what amounts to a miracle of technology and longevity in my eyes. BRAVO!!! THANK YOU EVERYONE PAST & PRESENT!!!Back then, I never thought the Voyager Project would still be going on this far into the future. It is what got me interested in space in the first place, along with my father being in the United States Air Force Security Service. He knew a number of Astronauts from the Gemini and Apollo programs. I met a couple, but I was just a kid. I now photograph planets, stars, the moon, and the Space Station when it goes over our area.
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EBairead I presume it's Fortran. Well done all.
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pennyturtle SpaceSpinner said:
I notice that the article says that it has been in space for 35 years. Either I have gone back in time 10 years, or their AI is off by 10 years. V-*ger has been captured!I had to pause when I first read it, but I believe they were referring to the 35 years it took from launch in 1977 to hitting interstellar space in 2012. That's why they then mention V2 taking an extra 6 years, till 2018 to leave the sun's influence.
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TheCoolBrit SpaceSpinner said:
I notice that the article says that it has been in space for 35 years. Either I have gone back in time 10 years, or their AI is off by 10 years. V-*ger has been captured!They need to update to fix this error. NASA engineers have incredibly fixed a 'work around' for the V1 memory.
Its amazing how V1 is still not one light day away, Space is SO SO BIG.Reply
Poisson Volant EBairead said:
I presume it's Fortran. Well done all.That was my first programming language! But it's more likely they used assembler or custom code to save storage. And yes, I remember moving bits and bytes while being careful to avoid "collisions". Protected memory wasn't always a thing back then.
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