She wrote that something was wrong with the veteran Voyager-1 spacecraft IFLScience. The structure goes beyond the limits of the solar system to gather invaluable information, but NASA researchers are now baffled by its data.
The system responsible for steering the spacecraft and its antenna, AACS, do not appear to be consistent with the probe’s behavior. One of the tasks of the AACS is to point the antenna to Earth if the system fails, possibly losing contact with Voyager-1 forever.
However, the fault protection system was not activated and the antenna was still facing the correct direction. Experts are currently investigating the cause of the problem and its impact on the mission.
Susan DowdA worker at NASA’s Propulsion Laboratory and head of the Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 programs said the spacecraft is 45 years old, much longer than expected at the start of the mission. In addition, the two probes travel in unknown terrain, in interstellar space, where they are exposed to higher levels of radiation. However, the researcher is confident that if there is a solution to the situation, the team will find it.
Voyager-1 is the most distant human-made object, currently about 23.3 billion km from our planet. Light travels this distance in 20 hours and 33 minutes.
