NASA’s 45-year-old Voyager 1 spacecraft is a marvel. It’s cruising alongside outdoors our photo voltaic system and nonetheless staying in contact with Earth. But it is introduced its group with what NASA is looking a “thriller.” It’s working usually however sending again some odd telemetry knowledge.The subject probably traces to Voyager 1’s perspective articulation and management system (AACS), which handles its orientation in house, together with the duty of retaining its antenna pointed at Earth”All indicators counsel the AACS remains to be working, however the telemetry knowledge it is returning is invalid. For occasion, the information might look like randomly generated, or doesn’t mirror any doable state the AACS might be in,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab mentioned in an announcement Wednesday.The knowledge is not making sense, however Voyager 1 is sustaining a transparent line of communication with house and the issue hasn’t triggered a protecting “secure mode.”
The twin spacecraft Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 launched within the 1970s and have lengthy outlasted their anticipated lifespans. They’re each in interstellar house, which Voyager 1 and a pair of challenge supervisor Suzanne Dodd describes as a “high-radiation atmosphere that no spacecraft have flown in earlier than.”Voyager 1 is roughly 14.5 billion miles (23.three billion kilometers) away from house. It takes a pair days to ship a sign after which hear again, which provides to the problem of understanding what is going on on. This leaves NASA with an entire lot of unknowns. Is the AACS the perpetrator or is one other system experiencing a glitch? Will Voyager 1 be capable to proceed its science mission? There are methods ahead from this glitch. Voyager 1 could reside with it. Or a software program repair or a swap to backup {hardware} might be the answer. NASA hopes each Voyagers will proceed to ship again science knowledge past 2025. Said Dodd, “A thriller like that is kind of par for the course at this stage of the Voyager mission.”
