nasa voyager one

• The Contents
• The Making of
• Where Are They Now
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Q & A with Ed Stone

golden record

Where are they now.

• frequently asked questions
• Q&A with Ed Stone

NASA’s Voyager Team Focuses on Software Patch, Thrusters

NASA Mission Update: Voyager 2 Communications Pause

NASA's Voyager Will Do More Science With New Power Strategy

Edward Stone Retires After 50 Years as NASA Voyager's Project Scientist

Voyager, NASA's Longest-Lived Mission, Logs 45 Years in Space

Voyager 1 distance from earth, voyager 1 distance from sun, voyager 1 one-way light time, voyager 1 cosmic ray data, voyager 2 distance from the earth, voyager 2 distance from the sun, voyager 2 one-way light time, voyager 2 cosmic ray data, what's happening now.

Since November 2023, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has been sending a steady radio signal to Earth, but the signal does not contain usable data.

Engineers are working to resolve an issue with one of Voyager 1’s three onboard computers, called the flight data system (FDS).

The efforts should help extend the lifetimes of the agency's interstellar explorers.

Download the Voyager 40th Anniversary posters.

April 22, 2024

After Months of Gibberish, Voyager 1 Is Communicating Well Again

NASA scientists spent months coaxing the 46-year-old Voyager 1 spacecraft back into healthy communication

By Meghan Bartels

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is depicted in this artist’s concept traveling through interstellar space, or the space between stars, which it entered in 2012.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

After months of nonsensical transmissions from humanity’s most distant emissary, NASA’s iconic Voyager 1 spacecraft is finally communicating intelligibly with Earth again.

Voyager 1 launched in 1977 , zipped past Jupiter and Saturn within just a few years and has been trekking farther from our sun ever since; the craft crossed into interstellar space in 2012. But in mid-November 2023 Voyager 1’s data transmissions became garbled , sending NASA engineers on a slow quest to troubleshoot the distant spacecraft. Finally, that work has paid off, and NASA has clear information on the probe’s health and status, the agency announced on April 22.

“It’s the most serious issue we’ve had since I’ve been the project manager, and it’s scary because you lose communication with the spacecraft,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in an interview with Scientific American when the team was still tracking down the issue.

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The Voyager 1 spacecraft is a scientific legend : It discovered that Jupiter’s moon Io, far from being a dead world like our own companion, is instead a supervolcanic world . The craft’s data suggested that Saturn’s moon Titan might have liquid on its surface. And for more than a decade, Voyager 1 has given scientists a glimpse at what space looks like beyond the influence of our sun.

Yet its long years in the harsh environment of space have done a number on the probe, which was designed to last just four years. In particular, degraded performance and low power supplies have forced NASA to turn off six of its 10 instruments, and its communication has gotten even spottier than can be explained by the fact that cosmic mechanics mean a signal takes nearly one Earth day to travel between humans and the probe.

When the latest communications glitch occurred last fall, scientists could still send signals to the distant probe, and they could tell that the spacecraft was operating. But all they got from Voyager 1 was gibberish—what NASA described in December 2023 as “a repeating pattern of ones and zeros.” The team was able to trace the issue back to a part of the spacecraft’s computer system called the flight data subsystem, or FDS, and identified that a particular chip within that system had failed.

Mission personnel couldn’t repair the chip. They were, however, able to break the code held on the failed chip into pieces they could tuck into spare corners of the FDS’s memory, according to NASA. The first such fix was transmitted to Voyager 1 on April 18. With a total distance of 30 billion miles to cross from Earth to the spacecraft and back, the team had to wait nearly two full days for a response from the probe. But on April 20 NASA got confirmation that the initial fix worked. Additional commands to rewrite the rest of the FDS system’s lost code are scheduled for the coming weeks, according to the space agency, including commands that will restore the spacecraft’s ability to send home science data.

Although, for now, Voyager 1 appears to be on the mend, NASA scientists know it won’t last forever. Sooner or later, a glitch they can’t fix will occur, or the spacecraft’s ever dwindling fuel supply will run out for good. Until then NASA is determined to get as much data as possible out of the venerable spacecraft—and its twin, Voyager 2, which experienced its own communications glitch earlier in 2023 .

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Voyager 1 transmitting data again after Nasa remotely fixes 46-year-old probe

Engineers spent months working to repair link with Earth’s most distant spacecraft, says space agency

Earth’s most distant spacecraft, Voyager 1, has started communicating properly again with Nasa after engineers worked for months to remotely fix the 46-year-old probe.

Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which makes and operates the agency’s robotic spacecraft, said in December that the probe – more than 15bn miles (24bn kilometres) away – was sending gibberish code back to Earth.

In an update released on Monday , JPL announced the mission team had managed “after some inventive sleuthing” to receive usable data about the health and status of Voyager 1’s engineering systems. “The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again,” JPL said. Despite the fault, Voyager 1 had operated normally throughout, it added.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 was designed with the primary goal of conducting close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn in a five-year mission. However, its journey continued and the spacecraft is now approaching a half-century in operation.

Voyager 1 crossed into interstellar space in August 2012, making it the first human-made object to venture out of the solar system. It is currently travelling at 37,800mph (60,821km/h).

Hi, it's me. - V1 https://t.co/jgGFBfxIOe — NASA Voyager (@NASAVoyager) April 22, 2024

The recent problem was related to one of the spacecraft’s three onboard computers, which are responsible for packaging the science and engineering data before it is sent to Earth. Unable to repair a broken chip, the JPL team decided to move the corrupted code elsewhere, a tricky job considering the old technology.

The computers on Voyager 1 and its sister probe, Voyager 2, have less than 70 kilobytes of memory in total – the equivalent of a low-resolution computer image. They use old-fashioned digital tape to record data.

The fix was transmitted from Earth on 18 April but it took two days to assess if it had been successful as a radio signal takes about 22 and a half hours to reach Voyager 1 and another 22 and a half hours for a response to come back to Earth. “When the mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on 20 April, they saw that the modification worked,” JPL said.

Voyager 1 and 2 have made numerous scientific discoveries , including taking detailed recordings of Saturn and revealing that Jupiter also has rings, as well as active volcanism on one of its moons, Io. The probes later discovered 23 new moons around the outer planets.

As their trajectory takes them so far from the sun, the Voyager probes are unable to use solar panels, instead converting the heat produced from the natural radioactive decay of plutonium into electricity to power the spacecraft’s systems.

In roughly 40,000 years, the probes will pass relatively close, in astronomical terms, to two stars. Voyager 1 will come within 1.7 light years of a star in the constellation Ursa Minor, while Voyager 2 will come within a similar distance of a star called Ross 248 in the constellation of Andromeda.

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Interstellar Mission

Voyager 1 reached interstellar space in August 2012 and is the most distant human-made object in existence.

Mission Statistics

Launch Date

Sept. 5, 1977

About the mission

Voyager 1 reached interstellar space in August 2012 and is the most distant human-made object in existence. Launched just shortly after its twin spacecraft, Voyager 2, in 1977, Voyager 1 explored the Jovian and Saturnian systems discovering new moons, active volcanoes and a wealth of data about the outer solar system.

Voyagers 1 and 2 were designed to take advantage of a rare planetary alignment that occurs only once in 176 years and remain the most well traveled spacecraft in history. Both spacecraft carry a sort of time capsule called the Golden Record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the story of our world to extraterrestrials.

Instruments

• Imaging system
• Infrared interferometer spectrometer
• Ultraviolet spectrometer
• Triaxial fluxgate magnetometer
• Plasma spectrometer
• Low-energy charged particles detectors
• Cosmic Ray System (CRS)
• Photopolarimeter System (PPS)
• Plasma Wave System (PWS)

Mission Highlights

Sept. 1, 2013

Interactive 3D model of Voyager 1. View the full interactive experience at Eyes on the Solar System .

Interstellar Messengers

Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 are the only spacecraft ever to operate outside the heliosphere, the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields generated by the Sun. Voyager 1 reached the interstellar boundary in 2012, while Voyager 2 (traveling slower and in a different direction than its twin) reached it in 2018.

Mission Type

Science Targets

Latest News

NASA’s Voyager Team Focuses on Software Patch, Thrusters

NASA’s Voyager Will Do More Science With New Power Strategy

Edward Stone Retires After 50 Years as NASA Voyager’s Project Scientist

Engineers Solve Data Glitch on NASA’s Voyager 1

Voyager, NASA’s Longest-Lived Mission, Logs 45 Years in Space

The Interstellar Mission

After completing the first in-depth reconnaissance of the outer planets, the twin Voyagers are on a new mission to chart the edge of interstellar space.

The Golden Record

The contents of the golden record were selected for NASA by a committee led by Carl Sagan of Cornell University.

The Spacecraft

The twin Voyagers are escaping our solar system in different directions at more than 3 astronomical units (AU) a year.

The Pale Blue Dot

The behind-the-scenes story of the making of Voyager 1's iconic image of Earth as "a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

Discover More Topics From NASA

Our Solar System

Heliosphere

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Well, hello, Voyager 1! The venerable spacecraft is once again making sense

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Members of the Voyager team celebrate at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory after receiving data about the health and status of Voyager 1 for the first time in months. NASA/JPL-Caltech hide caption

Members of the Voyager team celebrate at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory after receiving data about the health and status of Voyager 1 for the first time in months.

NASA says it is once again able to get meaningful information back from the Voyager 1 probe, after months of troubleshooting a glitch that had this venerable spacecraft sending home messages that made no sense.

The Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes launched in 1977 on a mission to study Jupiter and Saturn but continued onward through the outer reaches of the solar system. In 2012, Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space, the previously unexplored region between the stars. (Its twin, traveling in a different direction, followed suit six years later.)

Voyager 1 had been faithfully sending back readings about this mysterious new environment for years — until November, when its messages suddenly became incoherent .

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is talking nonsense. Its friends on Earth are worried

It was a serious problem that had longtime Voyager scientists worried that this historic space mission wouldn't be able to recover. They'd hoped to be able to get precious readings from the spacecraft for at least a few more years, until its power ran out and its very last science instrument quit working.

For the last five months, a small team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California has been working to fix it. The team finally pinpointed the problem to a memory chip and figured out how to restore some essential software code.

"When the mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on April 20, they saw that the modification worked: For the first time in five months, they have been able to check the health and status of the spacecraft," NASA stated in an update.

The usable data being returned so far concerns the workings of the spacecraft's engineering systems. In the coming weeks, the team will do more of this software repair work so that Voyager 1 will also be able to send science data, letting researchers once again see what the probe encounters as it journeys through interstellar space.

After a 12.3 billion-mile 'shout,' NASA regains full contact with Voyager 2

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Back From the Brink: NASA’s Voyager 1 Restores Data Transmission After 5 Months

By Jet Propulsion Laboratory April 23, 2024

Artist’s illustration of one of the Voyager spacecraft. Credit: Caltech/NASA-JPL

NASA ’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has begun transmitting usable engineering data for the first time since November after a chip failure in one of its onboard computers halted data transmission.

For the first time since November 2023 , NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems. The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again. The probe and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space (the space between stars).

Voyager 1 stopped sending readable science and engineering data back to Earth on November 14, 2023, even though mission controllers could tell the spacecraft was still receiving their commands and otherwise operating normally. In March, the Voyager engineering team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed that the issue was tied to one of the spacecraft’s three onboard computers, called the flight data subsystem (FDS). The FDS is responsible for packaging the science and engineering data before it’s sent to Earth.

Solution to the Memory Issue

The team discovered that a single chip responsible for storing a portion of the FDS memory — including some of the FDS computer’s software code — isn’t working. The loss of that code rendered the science and engineering data unusable. Unable to repair the chip, the team decided to place the affected code elsewhere in the FDS memory. But no single location is large enough to hold the section of code in its entirety.

After receiving data about the health and status of Voyager 1 for the first time in five months, members of the Voyager flight team celebrate in a conference room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on April 20. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Implementing the Fix

So they devised a plan to divide the affected code into sections and store those sections in different places in the FDS. To make this plan work, they also needed to adjust those code sections to ensure, for example, that they all still function as a whole. Any references to the location of that code in other parts of the FDS memory needed to be updated as well.

The team started by singling out the code responsible for packaging the spacecraft’s engineering data. They sent it to its new location in the FDS memory on April 18. A radio signal takes about 22 ½ hours to reach Voyager 1, which is over 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, and another 22 ½ hours for a signal to come back to Earth. When the mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on April 20, they saw that the modification worked: For the first time in five months, they were able to check the health and status of the spacecraft.

Future Plans and Voyager 2 Status

During the coming weeks, the team will relocate and adjust the other affected portions of the FDS software. These include the portions that will start returning science data.

Voyager 2 continues to operate normally. Launched over 46 years ago , the twin Voyager spacecraft are the longest-running and most distant spacecraft in history. Before the start of their interstellar exploration, both probes flew by Saturn and Jupiter , and Voyager 2 flew by Uranus and Neptune .

Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA.

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NASA's Voyager 1 Is Finally Making Sense After Months of Transmitting Gibberish

An artist’s concept of NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft.

The Voyager 1 spacecraft returned usable data for the first time in more than five months, giving hope for the 46-year-old mission to finally be able to resume its normal operations.

NASA’s favorite interstellar probe transmitted data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems to mission control on Saturday, the space agency announced . That’s great news for the mission, and the next step is hopefully for Voyager 1 to begin returning science data again.

The last time Voyager 1 sent readable science and engineering data back to Earth was on November 14, 2023. Afterwards, the spacecraft was receiving commands, but talking back to Earth in unusable gibberish . The storied spacecraft is exploring the outermost edge of the Sun’s domain, combining its observations with data from newer missions to get a better understanding of how the heliosphere interacts with interstellar space.

Related article: Voyager Probes Spot Previously Unknown Phenomenon in Deep Space

In March, the team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) pinpointed the cause behind Voyager 1's nonsensical data : a single chip responsible for storing part of the affected portion of the spacecraft’s flight data system (FDS) memory.

FDS collects data from Voyager’s science instruments, as well as engineering data about the health of the spacecraft, and combines them into a single package that’s transmitted to Earth in binary code. Since the glitch, however, the mission has been sending data in a repeating pattern of ones and zeroes.

Voyager 1 is 15.14 billion miles away, which makes repairing it that much more complicated. The engineers at JPL knew that they couldn’t fix the chip, but they could try to place the affected code elsewhere in the FDS memory.

Members of the Voyager flight team celebrate after receiving the signal back from Voyager 1 on April 20.

Instead of selecting a single location to hold all of the affected code, the team came up with a plan to divide it into sections and store those sections in different places in the FDS. On April 18, the mission team singled out the code responsible for packaging the spacecraft’s engineering data and sent it to its new location.

Two days later, the engineers heard back from the Voyager 1 spacecraft. It takes around 22.5 hours to send a radio signal to the spacecraft, and another 22.5 hours to receive one back.

Over the coming weeks, the Voyager 1 team will relocate the other affected portions of the software to different parts of the FDS memory, including portions related to the mission’s science data.

Voyager 1 launched in 1977, less than a month after its twin probe, Voyager 2, began its own journey to space. The probe ventured into interstellar space in August 2012, becoming the first spacecraft to leave the heliosphere. The twin spacecraft are the longest-running missions in history, and aside from a few communication glitches, the pair are doing pretty well for their age.

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April 22, 2024

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NASA's Voyager 1 resumes sending engineering updates to Earth

For the first time since November, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems. The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again. The probe and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space (the space between stars).

Voyager 1 stopped sending readable science and engineering data back to Earth on Nov. 14, 2023, even though mission controllers could tell the spacecraft was still receiving their commands and otherwise operating normally. In March, the Voyager engineering team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed that the issue was tied to one of the spacecraft's three onboard computers, called the flight data subsystem (FDS). The FDS is responsible for packaging the science and engineering data before it's sent to Earth.

The team discovered that a single chip responsible for storing a portion of the FDS memory—including some of the FDS computer's software code—isn't working. The loss of that code rendered the science and engineering data unusable. Unable to repair the chip, the team decided to place the affected code elsewhere in the FDS memory. But no single location is large enough to hold the section of code in its entirety.

So they devised a plan to divide the affected code into sections and store those sections in different places in the FDS. To make this plan work, they also needed to adjust those code sections to ensure, for example, that they all still function as a whole. Any references to the location of that code in other parts of the FDS memory needed to be updated as well.

The team started by singling out the code responsible for packaging the spacecraft's engineering data. They sent it to its new location in the FDS memory on April 18. A radio signal takes about 22.5 hours to reach Voyager 1, which is over 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, and another 22.5 hours for a signal to come back to Earth. When the mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on April 20, they saw that the modification had worked: For the first time in five months, they were able to check the health and status of the spacecraft.

During the coming weeks, the team will relocate and adjust the other affected portions of the FDS software. These include the portions that will start returning science data.

Voyager 2 continues to operate normally. Launched over 46 years ago, the twin Voyager spacecraft are the longest-running and most distant spacecraft in history. Before the start of their interstellar exploration, both probes flew by Saturn and Jupiter, and Voyager 2 flew by Uranus and Neptune.

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NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft resumes sending data to Earth from interstellar space after 5-month outage

Voyager 1 and 2 launched in 1977 and are nasa’s oldest and most distant robotic space travelers. an issue with voyager 1’s code that began in november meant the spacecraft was unable to send back data from interstellar space. after some creative engineering to find a solution, voyager teams got the first usable data from the spacecraft on april 20..

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Cheers and applause erupted this weekend when NASA’ s Voyager 1 spacecraft sent back the first usable data from interstellar space after a five-month communication gap. 

Engineers with Voyager's flight team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California , have been troubleshooting an issue since November , when the spacecraft, more than 15.1 billion miles from Earth, began sending back nonsense computer code.

On Saturday, after 45 hours of waiting to find out if their plan to send the problem code elsewhere on the spacecraft’s computer would work, the team got its response. 

NASA ENGINEERS HAVE RENEWED HOPE TO FIX HOBBLED VOYAGER 1 AFTER INTERSTELLAR SPACE DATA OUTAGE

"For the first time since November, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems," NASA JPL said in a blog. "The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again."

Earlier this year, NASA engineers honed in on one of three computers on the spacecraft, known as the Flight Data System (FDS), as the cause behind the communication problem. 

An artist's concept of Voyager 1 entering interstellar space, or the space between the stars. Interstellar space is filled with plasma, ionized gas (shown as a brownish haze here), that was cast off by giant stars millions of years ago, NASA said.

(NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA/JPL-Caltech Photojournal / NASA)

"Its role is to basically collect all of the data from the science instruments and the spacecraft, package them all neatly up and send them back to the Earth," Voyager Program scientist Linda Spilker told FOX Weather in mid-March. 

Eventually, the team discovered that the problem was a single chip responsible for storing part of the computer’s memory, including some of its software code. 

According to NASA, the team decided to place the problem code elsewhere in the computer’s memory. However, no single location has enough space to hold the code section, so the code was divided into sections and sent to different places on the FDS.

VOYAGER 1 AND 2 CONTINUE OFFERING NEW MYSTERIES FROM INTERSTELLAR SPACE 

On April 18, the team sent the first section of code responsible for packaging the spacecraft’s engineering data. It takes 22.5 hours to send a radio signal with the repair to Voyager 1 and another 22.5 hours to receive a signal back to Earth. 

Uranus (left) and Neptune (right) are seen in images taken by Voyager 2. ( )

A artist's concept showing the general locations of Voyager 1 (object in brownish-orange region) and Voyager 2 (object in gray-blue region). (NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA/JPL-Caltech Photojournal)

This illustration shows the positions of NASA’s Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes outside the heliosphere, the region surrounding our star, beyond which interstellar space begins. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) ( )

10-28-80 Washington: Image of Saturn taken by the Voyager Spacecraft at a distance of 21.1 million miles. Color enhanced by NASA ( )

Timeline of Voyager 2's travels ( )

"When the mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on April 20, they saw that the modification worked: For the first time in five months, they have been able to check the health and status of the spacecraft," NASA said.

HOW TO WATCH FOX WEATHER

This isn’t the first scare for either of NASA's twin interstellar spacecraft, which started as a 5-year mission and has now been operating for 46 years.

Another issue with garbled data for Voyager 1 in 2022 was fixed over several months. In 1981, the team experienced a similar communication issue to the current problem.

Voyager 2 is currently operating normally more than 12.6 billion miles from Earth. Last year, an incorrect command sent Voyager 2 pointing away from Earth , preventing it from sending back data. Teams were able to send a patch and reorient the spacecraft. 

In the coming weeks, more commands will be sent to relocate Voyager 1's problem code and adjust the FDS software. Eventually, the spacecraft will begin returning science data.

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NASA’s Voyager 1 sends first message in 5 months after space scientists restore technical glitch; details here

Nasa’s voyager 1 recently sent an update about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems for the first time in five months. for the first time since november, nasa is set to enable the spacecraft to yield science data again and resume operation..

NASA’s Voyager 1, the most distant human-made spacecraft, recently sent an update about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems after a pause of nearly five months. 

The spacecraft resumed its function of sending usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems for the first time in nine months. For the first time since November, the US space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), is set to enable the spacecraft to yield science data again and resume operation.

Also read: NASA's spacecraft grabs 4.5 billion-year-old rocks from asteroid; Here's what it reveals about earliest signs of life

As per NASA's report, Voyager 1's last message was on November 14. However, the spacecraft continued to receive the space agency's commands and operate normally. 

Also read: Saturn’s ocean moon Enceladus appears to have 'ingredients' to support life: Report

Later, in March, it was discovered that the issue was tied to one of Voyager's three onboard computers, called the flight data subsystem (FDS). The FDS packages the science and engineering data before transmitting it to Earth.

The engineering team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory located in Southern California discovered that the chip responsible for storing a portion of the FDS memory was not working, in which the FDS computer’s software code was also stored.

NASA said, “The loss of that code rendered the science and engineering data unusable. Unable to repair the chip, the team decided to place the affected code elsewhere in the FDS memory." The space agency further noted, “But no single location is large enough to hold the section of code in its entirety."

Also read: NASA Mars Mission: Space agency seeks cost-cutting solutions for Mars soil sample return amid budget trims

Subsequently, the mission controllers devised a plan to divide the affected code into sections and store those sections in different places in the FDS. A radio signal was sent to Voyager 1 on April 18. The mission flight team successfully received a message from the spacecraft on April 20, following certain modifications to the code that worked.

It is important to note that the Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space.

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NASA's Voyager 1 glitch has scientists sad yet hopeful: 'Voyager 2 is still going strong'

"If V1 didn't make it? I'd be very proud; the mission has far exceeded the designers' expectations."

It has been several months since one of humanity's most accomplished spacecraft, the Voyager 1 probe, stopped talking to us — and though they remain somewhat hopeful, Voyager mission scientists are preparing for the worst: A goodbye.

"Sad and frustrated to have the spacecraft still working, but muted," Bruce Waggoner, the Voyager mission assurance manager, told Space.com of the group's present morale. "Even though we know the end could come at any time, it's never easy to lose a spacecraft. Especially one like Voyager 1 ."

For more than 45 years, this boxy machine with a pearly white, conical disk that sort of makes it look like a giant loudspeaker in space has been sending back stunning data. And I mean stunning. Not only is it the first craft to enter interstellar space (and therefore the farthest human-made object ever ), but it's also responsible for the identification of new Jovian moons, the discovery of yet another Saturnian ring and the solar system 's first and only "family portrait" that includes our eclectic gang of planets.

Related: NASA's interstellar Voyager 1 spacecraft isn't doing so well — here's what we know

It's also why we have the powerful Pale Blue Dot image that resurfaces on the internet every so often to remind us of our insignificance, or rather, significance, depending on your perspective. As Carl Sagan famously said, "Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us."

All this time, Voyager 1's cosmic letters have come through as computer messages often do, with 0's and 1's in precise patterns. Through a little bit of handiwork, such sequences can be translated into words the human mind can grasp — and scientists were always excited to open a new package of Voyager 1's binary code. 

But then, in September of last year, the 0's and 1's stopped making sense . 

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"Effectively, the call between the spacecraft and the Earth was still connected, but Voyager's 'voice' was replaced with a monotonous dial tone," the engineering team told Space.com.

Glitches have happened to Voyager 1 before, such as in 2022 when the probe's "attitude articulation and control system" exhibited some complications, but this one seems to be a doozy. The team still hasn't been able to fix it up, even months since the issue revealed itself, and is actually still searching for the crux of the problem.

So, is it time to call the final curtain on Voyager 1? 

Well, to that end, scientists aren't quite sure yet. They remain working to remedy the situation — and quite diligently at that. "The team is tired because we have sustained a brisk pace for 3 months now, but we press on because we have ideas, and we have hope," Voyager mission engineer Kareem Badaruddin told Space.com.

 However, what the team is sure of is that even if Voyager 1 succumbs to its wounds, the voyage is certainly not over.

"Don't forget Voyager 2 is still going strong! If we can keep one spacecraft going, the mission will continue," the crew said.

Voyager 2, which looks an awful lot like Voyager 1, actually launched 16 days before its counterpart, on Aug. 20, 1977. Voyager 1 just happened to get farther faster because it had a more efficient route out of the asteroid belt , officially overtaking its partner on Dec. 15, 1977 and later becoming the first probe to exit the gravitational influence of our solar system. Voyager 2 does have a bunch of achievements under its own belt, though, such as the fact that it's still the only spacecraft to have visited the outer planets, Uranus and Neptune . 

Together, the Voyagers' joint mission was to simply explore — to plunge through the solar system, sweep across moons and planets beyond our own and try to go where no spacecraft has gone before.

"The Voyagers are the only spacecraft exploring interstellar space in-situ, and there are no missions that can gather this same data remotely," the team said.

They've surely been doing their duty, and hopefully, Voyager 1 has a little more juice left. But even if it doesn't, scientists wish to make clear that Voyager 2 shall continue to keep the torch lit.

Voyager 1's medical chart 

In December of 2023 , the Voyager 1 team announced that the spacecraft's malfunction lies with its Flight Data System, or FDS, which is one of its onboard computers. There used to be a backup FDS, but that stopped working in 1981. 

"Because of this issue, scientists are not receiving any science data or updates about the probe's health and status, including information that might reveal the source of the problem," the team explains.

Here's where perhaps the greatest trouble with this dilemma comes in. One of the FDS' main jobs is to basically keep Voyager 1's medical records up to date, then work with what's known as the telemetry modulation unit, or TMU, to tell ground control what's going on. But, because the FDS itself is the one malfunctioning, that medical record transmission can't happen.

"The team has attempted various 'simple' fixes, such as resetting the FDS to the state it was in before the issue began," the engineers said. "This week, the team will send more commands to the spacecraft to gather information about the status of the onboard systems. In the coming weeks, the team expects to start making more aggressive attempts to reset various systems that might influence the FDS."

As of now, the team believes one possible cause of the issue has to do with the FDS' memory being corrupted by some mechanism that leads its binary code to sprout unintelligible patterns. However, engineers are also considering the fact that it could be a physical hardware failure. After all, Voyager 1's mechanics have been toiling away for multiple decades. Something could've simply broken down, hardware- or software-wise. In fact, scientists beamed some preemptive software patches to both of the Voyagers last year, from billions of miles away.

"The anomaly has caused us to study and learn about the spacecraft — much knowledge that was forgotten because it wasn't needed for many years has been recovered," Badaruddin said.

In a slightly more far-fetched scenario, the team also suggests it's possible some sort of energetic particle could've smashed into the spacecraft. If that happened, it might've created what's known as a "bit flip," which means a 0 in the code accidentally became a 1, or vice versa.

Still, the team is leaving all possibilities open. That's because, in truth, it might not even be the FDS that's causing problems in the first place. This theory is just the most likely one to stem from data the engineers currently have. "Because no engineering data is coming back, it's very hard to isolate the source of the problem" they said.

Moreover, in a bit of a non-silver lining, remember how Voyager 1's greatest achievement is being the first-ever probe to venture into interstellar space, where it's surrounded by untouched stardust and blankets of darkness? Yeah, it's extremely far away from us. And that means communicating with it takes a very (very) long time. Specifically, at the time of writing this article, Voyager 1 is more than 162 AUs away from Earth; one AU is equal to the distance between our planet and the sun . In total, it takes approximately 45 hours to complete one back-and-forth command with this spacecraft. Thus, "this process may take months," the team said.

To give you a silver lining, though, the scientists have confirmed that Voyager 1 is exhibiting what's known as a carrier tone, which runs along a wavelength that doesn't carry information but rather acts as a heartbeat. At the very least, we know it is alive.

"The spacecraft appears to be healthy other than the current issue. So if we can fix this, Voyager 1 should be able to continue its science mission," the team said. "But the Voyagers are already operating far, far beyond what anyone expected of them. We know the more time that goes by, the more issues are likely to arise. We’ll keep them going as long as we can, but we know they won't last forever."

—  Voyager 2: An iconic spacecraft that's still exploring 45 years on

—  NASA's interstellar Voyager probes get software updates beamed from 12 billion miles away

—  NASA Voyager 2 spacecraft extends its interstellar science mission for 3 more years

"If V1 didn't make it? I'd be very proud; the mission has far exceeded the designers' expectations," Badaruddin said. "But really, that's hard to ponder because we still believe we can recover."

Alas, fingers crossed that Voyager 1 returns to its healthy self — but even if it doesn't, and is left alone to drift in space, we can be sure its legacy has already been firmly cemented in our books, in our hearts and in our history. 

Then, it'll be up to you, Voyager 2.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Monisha Ravisetti is Space.com's Astronomy Editor. She covers black holes, star explosions, gravitational waves, exoplanet discoveries and other enigmas hidden across the fabric of space and time. Previously, she was a science writer at CNET, and before that, reported for The Academic Times. Prior to becoming a writer, she was an immunology researcher at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. She graduated from New York University in 2018 with a B.A. in philosophy, physics and chemistry. She spends too much time playing online chess. Her favorite planet is Earth.

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• dziner88 Mmmm....I see the premise for the original Star Trek movie. 😉 Reply
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