Ground control “nudged” it, and Voyager 1 responded by sending data, reviving hope that data could be received again from the veteran probe in interstellar space. The most remote man-made device did not receive a meaningful signal for four months, and there were many indications that this failure might be the last. For the second time in recent years, Voyager-1 has reached the brink of ultimate destruction.
The Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 missions, launched in 1977, were to explore Jupiter and Saturn — however, the program, originally planned for five years, is slowly approaching its 50th year. The main reasons for Voyager's long life are over-design, i.e. combined technical support with multiple parallel systems, and RTG, i.e. plutonium isotope power source, which according to all indications can supply the probes with more energy. From half a century.
The Voyagers are currently experiencing previously unknown proportions of overperformance, as their original creators slowly die, and successors attempt to hack technology several times outdated from the Yellow Documents in order to prolong their work.
I am better at this moment
On board Voyager-1, it is one of three on-board computers used to sequence and transmit flight data and data from scientific instruments, but since last November it has been repeating only a short code. The error was likely caused by incorrect data from the trip data module and persisted after the reboot.
Ground control attempted to “push” Voyager, that is, send a message that would cause the on-board computer to initiate other operations. Then they noticed a change in the signals returned. It was not in the format they had used before, but NASA's Deep Space Network decoded it and found that the onboard computer was writing the entire memory of the flight control system. This greatly helps in solving the problem, because by comparing the data stored in memory with the data before the failure, they can deduce exactly what happened.
It took three days to crack the code, but the solution to the problem could not be rushed anyway, because the messages reach the probe within 22.5 hours, that is, 22.5 hours.
It takes approximately two days to exchange messages.
The previous major failure of Voyager-1 occurred in May 2022, when the vehicle was unable to determine its position because the GPS somehow started sending data through one of the on-board computers.
The current problem is not of this type, it is more like a mistake that occurred in 1981, and according to experts, it is caused by damage to the memory of the computer that controls the subsystem that deals with flight data.
The probe's twin, Voyager 2, did not communicate for seven months in 2020, and in August 2023, it was required to point its antenna toward Earth with a particularly strong signal, known as a “scream.”
If the vehicle's onboard systems and power supply can hold out until then, the probes are expected to leave the range of the Deep Space Network antenna system, which ensures communication, in 2036.
(Ars Technica, CNN, New Atlas)
Follow Index on Facebook too!
