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

Emily Olson

Ayana Archie

A NASA image of one of the twin Voyager space probes. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory lost contact with Voyager 2 on July 21 after mistakenly pointing its antenna 2 degrees away from Earth. On Friday, contact was fully restored. NASA/Getty Images hide caption

A NASA image of one of the twin Voyager space probes. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory lost contact with Voyager 2 on July 21 after mistakenly pointing its antenna 2 degrees away from Earth. On Friday, contact was fully restored.

Talk about a long-distance call.

NASA said it resumed full communications with the Voyager 2 on Friday after almost two weeks of silence from the interstellar spacecraft.

The agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said a series of ground antennas, part of the Deep Space Network, registered a carrier signal from Voyager 2 on Tuesday. However, the signal was too faint.

A Deep Space Network facility in Australia then sent "the equivalent of an interstellar 'shout' " to the Voyager 2 telling it to turn its antenna back toward Earth. The signal was sent more than 12.3 billion miles away and it took 37 hours to get a response from the spacecraft, NASA said.

Scientists received a response at about 12:30 a.m. ET Friday. Voyager 2 is now operating normally, returning science and telemetry data, and "remains on its expected trajectory," NASA said.

NASA said Friday that it lost contact with Voyager 2 on July 21 after "a series of planned commands" inadvertently caused the craft to turn its antenna 2 degrees away from the direction of its home planet.

NASA is keeping Voyager 2 going until at least 2026 by tapping into backup power

What might seem like a slight error had big consequences: NASA previously said it wouldn't be able to communicate with the craft until October, when the satellite would go through one of its routine repositioning steps.

"That is a long time to wait, so we'll try sending up commands several times" before October, program manager Suzanne Dodd told The Associated Press.

These are the 4 astronauts who'll take a trip around the moon next year

Even if Voyager 2 had failed to reestablish communications until fall, the engineers expected it to stay moving on its planned trajectory on the edge of the solar system.

Voyager 2 entered interstellar space in November 2018 — more than 40 years since it launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. To this day, Voyager 2 remains one of only two human-made objects to ever operate outside the heliosphere, which NASA defines as "the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields generated by the Sun."

Its primary mission was to study the outer solar system, and already, Voyager 2 has proved its status as a planetary pioneer . Equipped with several imaging instruments, the spacecraft is credited with documenting the discovery of 16 new moons, six new rings and Neptune's "Great Dark Spot."

Voyager 2 Bids Adieu To The Heliosphere, Entering Interstellar Space

Voyager 2 is also carrying some precious cargo, like a message in a bottle, should it find itself as the subject of another world's discovery: a golden record containing a variety of natural sounds, greetings in 55 languages and a 90-minute selection of music.

Last month's command mix-up foreshadows the craft's inevitable end an estimated three years from now.

"Eventually, there will not be enough electricity to power even one instrument," reads a NASA page documenting the spacecraft's travels . "Then, Voyager 2 will silently continue its eternal journey among the stars."

Meanwhile, Voyager 2's sister spacecraft, Voyager 1, is still broadcasting and transmitting data just fine from a slightly farther vantage point of 15 billion miles away.

Correction Aug. 3, 2023

A previous version of this article implied that Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in 2018 when, in fact, the spacecraft concluded its encounter with the planet and started heading toward Neptune in 1986. Voyager 2 entered interstellar space in November 2018.

• Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Hubble Provides Interstellar Road Map for Voyagers’ Galactic Trek

NASA’s two Voyager spacecraft are hurtling through unexplored territory on their road trip beyond our solar system. Along the way, they are measuring the interstellar medium, the mysterious environment between stars. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is providing the road map – by measuring the material along the probes’ future trajectories. Even after the Voyagers run out of electrical power and are unable to send back new data, which may happen in about a decade, astronomers can use Hubble observations to characterize the environment through which these silent ambassadors will glide.

A preliminary analysis of the Hubble observations reveals a rich, complex interstellar ecology, containing multiple clouds of hydrogen laced with other elements. Hubble data, combined with the Voyagers, have also provided new insights into how our sun travels through interstellar space.

“This is a great opportunity to compare data from in situ measurements of the space environment by the Voyager spacecraft and telescopic measurements by Hubble,” said study leader Seth Redfield of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. “The Voyagers are sampling tiny regions as they plow through space at roughly 38,000 miles per hour. But we have no idea if these small areas are typical or rare. The Hubble observations give us a broader view because the telescope is looking along a longer and wider path. So Hubble gives context to what each Voyager is passing through.”

The astronomers hope that the Hubble observations will help them characterize the physical properties of the local interstellar medium. “Ideally, synthesizing these insights with in situ measurements from Voyager would provide an unprecedented overview of the local interstellar environment,” said Hubble team member Julia Zachary of Wesleyan University.

The team’s results will be presented Jan. 6 at the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Grapevine, Texas.

NASA launched the twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft in 1977. Both explored the outer planets Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 2 went on to visit Uranus and Neptune.

The pioneering Voyager spacecraft are currently exploring the outermost edge of the sun’s domain . Voyager 1 is now zooming through interstellar space, the region between the stars that is filled with gas, dust, and material recycled from dying stars.

Voyager 1 is 13 billion miles from Earth, making it the farthest human-made object ever built. In about 40,000 years, after the spacecraft will no longer be operational and will not be able to gather new data, it will pass within 1.6 light-years of the star Gliese 445, in the constellation Camelopardalis. Its twin, Voyager 2, is 10.5 billion miles from Earth, and will pass 1.7 light-years from the star Ross 248 in about 40,000 years.

For the next 10 years, the Voyagers will be making measurements of interstellar material, magnetic fields and cosmic rays along their trajectories. Hubble complements the Voyagers’ observations by gazing at two sight lines along each spacecraft’s path to map interstellar structure along their star-bound routes. Each sight line stretches several light-years to nearby stars. Sampling the light from those stars, Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph measures how interstellar material absorbs some of the starlight, leaving telltale spectral fingerprints.

Hubble found that Voyager 2 will move out of the interstellar cloud that surrounds the solar system in a couple thousand years. The astronomers, based on Hubble data, predict that the spacecraft will spend 90,000 years in a second cloud and pass into a third interstellar cloud.

An inventory of the clouds’ composition reveals slight variations in the abundances of the chemical elements contained in the structures. “These variations could mean the clouds formed in different ways, or from different areas, and then came together,” Redfield said.

An initial look at the Hubble data also suggests that the sun is passing through clumpier material in nearby space, which may affect the heliosphere, the large bubble containing our solar system that is produced by our sun’s powerful solar wind. At its boundary, called the heliopause, the solar wind pushes outward against the interstellar medium. Hubble and Voyager 1 made measurements of the interstellar environment beyond this boundary, where the wind comes from stars other than our sun.

“I’m really intrigued by the interaction between stars and the interstellar environment,” Redfield said. “These kinds of interactions are happening around most stars, and it is a dynamic process.”

The heliosphere is compressed when the sun moves through dense material, but it expands back out when the star passes through low-density matter. This expansion and contraction is caused by the interaction between the outward pressure of the stellar wind, composed of a stream of charged particles, and the pressure of the interstellar material surrounding a star.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C. The Voyagers were built by JPL, which continues to operate both spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech.

For images and more information about the local interstellar medium and Hubble, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

For more information about the Voyager mission, visit: www.nasa.gov/voyager

For additional information, contact:

Felicia Chou NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. 202-358-0257 [email protected]

Donna Weaver / Ray Villard Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland 410-338-4493 / 410-338-4514 [email protected]  /  [email protected]

Elizabeth Landau Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 818-354-6425 [email protected]

Seth Redfield Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut 860-685-3669 [email protected]

Related Terms

• Astrophysics
• Goddard Space Flight Center
• Hubble Space Telescope

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818-354-0880

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Voyager 1 and 2: The Interstellar Mission

An image of Neptune taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Image credit: NASA

NASA has beautiful photos of every planet in our solar system. We even have images of faraway Neptune , as you can see in the photo above.

Neptune is much too distant for an astronaut to travel there with a camera. So, how do we have pictures from distant locations in our solar system? Our photographers were two spacecraft, called Voyager 1 and Voyager 2!

An artist’s rendering of one of the Voyager spacecraft. Image credit: NASA

The Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft launched from Earth in 1977. Their mission was to explore Jupiter and Saturn —and beyond to the outer planets of our solar system. This was a big task. No human-made object had ever attempted a journey like that before.

The two spacecraft took tens of thousands of pictures of Jupiter and Saturn and their moons. The pictures from Voyager 1 and 2 allowed us to see lots of things for the first time. For example, they captured detailed photos of Jupiter's clouds and storms, and the structure of Saturn's rings .

Image of storms on Jupiter taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Image credit: NASA

Voyager 1 and 2 also discovered active volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io , and much more. Voyager 2 also took pictures of Uranus and Neptune. Together, the Voyager missions discovered 22 moons.

Since then, these spacecraft have continued to travel farther away from us. Voyager 1 and 2 are now so far away that they are in interstellar space —the region between the stars. No other spacecraft have ever flown this far away.

Where will Voyager go next?

Watch this video to find out what's beyond our solar system!

Both spacecraft are still sending information back to Earth. This data will help us learn about conditions in the distant solar system and interstellar space.

The Voyagers have enough fuel and power to operate until 2025 and beyond. Sometime after this they will not be able to communicate with Earth anymore. Unless something stops them, they will continue to travel on and on, passing other stars after many thousands of years.

Each Voyager spacecraft also carries a message. Both spacecraft carry a golden record with scenes and sounds from Earth. The records also contain music and greetings in different languages. So, if intelligent life ever find these spacecraft, they may learn something about Earth and us as well!

A photo of the golden record that was sent into space on both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

More about our universe!

Where does interstellar space begin?

Searching for other planets like ours

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Voyager engineers keep on tickin' in new documentary 'It's Quieter in the Twilight'

Director Billy Miossi's engaging new film on NASA’s remaining Voyager team lands on May 19.

NASA's twin Voyager spacecraft launched back in the summer of 1977 on a "grand tour" of the solar system and are still exploring more than 45 years later.

Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have both ventured into interstellar space and continue to beam data home to a small squad of remaining mission engineers and scientists.

This aged crew of engineers, operating out of unpretentious office space and foregoing promotions and planned retirement, have committed themselves to staying with the longest-running and farthest-reaching mission in NASA's history. Battling outdated technology and the march of time, Voyager's flight team sticks with humankind’s greatest exploration endeavor.  

Weigel Productions' "It's Quieter in the Twilight" is a new space documentary showcasing this dedicated team. Directed by Billy Miossi and produced by Matt Reynolds and Alissa Shapiro, the film arrives in theaters and on demand starting on May 19, 2023.  

Related: Voyager: 15 incredible images of our solar system captured by the twin probes (gallery)

Here’s the official synopsis:

They watch the bright lights from a distance today. The headlines now go to big names with bigger bank accounts. But, they are comfortable in the quiet; it suits them. Yet this quirky team of brilliant engineers — like the Voyager spacecraft they pilot — are pushing the notion of true discovery, traveling among stars propelled only by dwindling sunlight. While the world has moved on to fancier ships and splashier front men — the celestial journey of the aging spacecraft transcends earthly boundaries — from rural South Korea, the Jim Crow South and the U.S./Mexico border to cement a joint commitment to the mission which has traveled the furthest in human history as the clock winds down.

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Featuring Voyager mission team members Sun Matsumoto, Enrique Medina, Fernando Peralta, Jefferson Hall, Todd Barber, Suzy Dodd and Chris Jones.

—  What's next for NASA's Voyager 2 in interstellar space?

—  Scientists' predictions for the long-term future of the Voyager Golden Records will blow your mind

—  NASA's twin Voyager probes are nearly 45 — and facing some hard decisions  

"There's a unique dichotomy that drew me into the story of the aging Voyager mission," Miossi said in a press statement. "The grandest feat of human exploration being steered by a humble few sitting in a drab office space. They seek no fame, no recognition. 

"Instead, they're content to quietly contribute a novel expertise for the sake of a deeper understanding of the vastness that exists beyond our world. Voyager is a once-in-a-lifetime, and perhaps many lifetimes, mission. And so much of what it has achieved over the past several decades is owed to a tiny team of engineers who have forgone promotions and, now, retirement. To understand them, their devotion, is what lies at the heart of 'It's Quieter in the Twilight.' I wanted the world to know these unsung explorers and to know the essential role they've played in humanity's most ambitious adventure."

Follow us   on Twitter @ Spacedotcom  and on  Facebook .  

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].

Jeff Spry is an award-winning screenwriter and veteran freelance journalist covering TV, movies, video games, books, and comics. His work has appeared at SYFY Wire, Inverse, Collider, Bleeding Cool and elsewhere. Jeff lives in beautiful Bend, Oregon amid the ponderosa pines, classic muscle cars, a crypt of collector horror comics, and two loyal English Setters.

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Exclusive: NASA Explains How the Voyager Missions Could Live Until 2035

Saving a few watts of power here and there could buy the spacecraft a little more time to tell us about interstellar space.

The team running NASA’s nearly 46-year-old Voyager missions hope to get the pair of aging spacecraft to 19 billion miles from the Sun (about 208 AU, or 208 times the distance of Earth’s orbit) with at least one instrument on each spacecraft still sending home information about interstellar space.

To pull it off, they’re racing against nuclear physics, constantly searching for ways to keep the Voyagers’ instruments and radio transmitters running as the radioactive material that powers them steadily decays. But now NASA is considering a clever new plan that may buy the Voyagers a little more time.

Because the engineers who built Voyager 1 and 2 knew the spacecraft would venture too far from the Sun to use solar power, they opted for what’s called a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. A supply of radioactive material produces heat as it decays, and the generator converts that heat into electricity. But as the radioactive material decays, its power output also decreases, so every year, the Voyagers have four watts less power to run on.

At the moment, Voyager 1 is powering its four remaining instruments (one broke down a few years ago) with about 8.3 watts to spare; Voyager 2, with five instruments still running, has about 3.6 watts to spare. Unless the engineering team comes up with a plan, they’re going to have shut off one of Voyager 2’s instruments in less than a year in order to have enough power to keep the others — and communications with Earth — running.

This artist's concept shows NASA's two Voyager spacecraft exploring a turbulent region of space known as the heliosheath, the outer shell of the bubble of charged particles around our sun.

One idea on the table, called voltage management, could buy Voyager 2 another year and a half before its operators have to shut down an instrument.

Watts measure how much electrical power is flowing through a circuit; think of it as the electrical version of measuring how much water flows out of a faucet every minute. (That’s not a perfect metaphor, but it’s close enough to illustrate the point.)

Voltage, on the other hand, is the difference in electrical charge between two points in a circuit. Wind or water will flow from a spot with high pressure to a spot with low pressure, and electrons will do pretty much the same thing. By regulating that difference in electrical potential, engineers can get an instrument to use less power over time. It’s a fairly common energy-saving trick here on Earth, and Suzanne Dodd, project manager for Voyager, says NASA’s Mars rovers use voltage management, too.

“We haven’t implemented it yet; we haven’t needed to implement it yet. We were trying to see if that was something we could do on the spacecraft, and it appears that it will be,” Dodd tells Inverse . “We think it will work, and it should get us another year-plus, maybe two years in lifetime before we would have to turn off an instrument.”

Here’s the Background

Keeping the two Voyagers running this long has taken constant work — and a lot of creativity. At launch, no one expected these spacecraft to still be running 45 years in the future, after most of their original designers had passed on.

“[Flying] beyond Neptune, and certainly the 30-plus years we spent getting out to interstellar space, were not thought of at the time of launch,” says Dodd. “I’m confident that if you talk to an original designer — which would be very hard to do now because most of them have passed away — they would say they never would have expected it to last as long as it has.”

The Voyagers were designed to fly by the planets of the outer Solar System, giving humanity a closer look at the strange, giant worlds beyond the asteroid belt — following up on the earlier Pioneer 10 and 11 missions. Both Voyager spacecraft sent home stunning images of Jupiter and Saturn, and Voyager 2 became the first, and so far only, spacecraft to get anywhere near Uranus and Neptune. But with that mission complete, the Voyagers kept going, sending home valuable information about how solar wind and magnetic fields changed in the outer reaches of the Solar System — and eventually giving us our first real taste of interstellar space.

"The Mission/Test Imaging System at Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. MTIS receives scientific data from planetary spacecraft, such as the outer-planet Voyagers, then splits off data from the cameras and reconstructs it as photos. Other science data are then routed to the respective science teams. Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages NASA's planetary program missions, including Voyager, for NASA's Office of Space Science." United States, circa 1980s. (Photo by Archive Photos/Space Frontiers/Getty Images)

Keeping the spacecraft going has kept engineers on their toes.

“I would say that 100 percent of it has been figured out along the way,” says Dodd. “Absolutely nothing was known about flying for 45 years at 175 AU from us here on Earth, and we're into our 46th year now.”

In some ways, Dodd and her colleagues have found it easier to improvise with the decades-old Voyagers — and their relatively simple parts and systems — than they might have with more recent spacecraft.

“The simplicity of Voyager helps if you want to change things over time as the spacecraft gets older and the mission lasts longer,” says Dodd. “It's kind of like having an old car, and you can look under the hood and know what the key pieces are. When you have a new car, it's all driven by software and it's really hard to just go in there and tweak the carburetor and have it still run.”

But also like an old car, the venerable Voyagers have developed their own quirks over time. Voyager 1’s plasma science instrument broke down during the 2000s, and Voyager 2’s radio receiver has trouble picking up certain frequencies.

“I often describe it like you have two twin sisters that are identical at launch, but different pieces of them have failed over time,” says Dodd. “You can think of plasma as sort of a sense of touch, because it immediately can sense the density of the plasma that you're traveling through. So you've got one twin sister with no hearing and one twin sister with no sense of touch or feel.”

Why It Matters

At this point, the sheer length of the Voyager missions is scientifically useful in itself, especially to physicists who study the Sun, its magnetic field, and the wind of charged particles it blows out into space.

“You have this time record for 46 years of how the effects of the Sun change as you go further and further away from it,” says Dodd.

1981: A simulation of the space probe Voyager 2 preparing to leave our solar system to become the fourth interstellar craft. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)

The Voyagers are the first working spacecraft to travel to interstellar space — a vastness into which we’ve looked with telescopes but never before actually sent a probe.

Along the way, they’re sending home the first real data about how the Sun’s magnetic field and the edges of its solar wind interact with the magnetic fields and charged particles of interstellar space. That data helps physicists build better models to explore how our Sun works and what interstellar space is like. And it will be decades, at least, before we get another chance at that.

What’s Next

Even with voltage management — and every other trick NASA engineers can pull out of their hats — the Voyagers’ team will eventually have to start shutting down instruments, one by one.

When the time comes, they’ll choose which instruments to shut down based partly on power consumption and partly on scientific usefulness. Dodd says the team will try to avoid shutting down the same instrument on both spacecraft, at least for as long as that’s an option. The last instruments standing will probably be the magnetometer and an instrument for measuring charged particles called the Plasma Wave Subsystem — two of the Voyagers’ least power-hungry instruments and also two that can reveal the most about what interstellar space is like.

“I would say our stretch goal is to get out to 208 AU, which would take us to about 2035 or in that ballpark, so another 10 to 12 years,” says Dodd. “The goal would be to get there with one instrument still operating.”

At that point, the last thing to go will be the Voyagers’ radio transmitters. When the spacecraft run out of power to keep those running, the mission here on Earth will be over, and the Voyagers will fly on in silence.

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News | July 28, 2023

Nasa mission update: voyager 2 communications pause.

UPDATE, Aug. 4, 2023: NASA has reestablished full communications with Voyager 2.

The agency’s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia, sent the equivalent of an interstellar “shout” more than 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) to Voyager 2, instructing the spacecraft to reorient itself and turn its antenna back to Earth. With a one-way light time of 18.5 hours for the command to reach Voyager, it took 37 hours for mission controllers to learn whether the command worked. At 12:29 a.m. EDT on Aug. 4, the spacecraft began returning science and telemetry data, indicating it is operating normally and that it remains on its expected trajectory.

UPDATE, Aug. 1, 2023: Using multiple antennas, NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) was able to detect a carrier signal from Voyager 2. A carrier signal is what the spacecraft uses to send data back to Earth. The signal is too faint for data to be extracted, but the detection confirms that the spacecraft is still operating. The spacecraft also continues on its expected trajectory. Although the mission expects the spacecraft to point its antenna at Earth in mid-October, the team will attempt to command Voyager sooner, while its antenna is still pointed away from Earth. To do this, a DSN antenna will be used to “shout” the command to Voyager to turn its antenna. This intermediary attempt may not work, in which case the team will wait for the spacecraft to automatically reset its orientation in October.

Once the spacecraft’s antenna is realigned with Earth, communications should resume.

A series of planned commands sent to NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft July 21 inadvertently caused the antenna to point 2 degrees away from Earth. As a result, Voyager 2 is currently unable to receive commands or transmit data back to Earth.

Voyager 2 is located more than 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) from Earth, and this change has interrupted communication between Voyager 2 and the ground antennas of NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN). Data being sent by the spacecraft is no longer reaching the DSN, and the spacecraft is not receiving commands from ground controllers.

Voyager 2 is programmed to reset its orientation multiple times each year to keep its antenna pointing at Earth; the next reset will occur on Oct. 15, which should enable communication to resume. The mission team expects Voyager 2 to remain on its planned trajectory during the quiet period.

Voyager 1, which is almost 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, continues to operate normally.

A division of Caltech in Pasadena, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory built and operates the Voyager spacecraft. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/voyager

News Media Contact

Calla Cofield Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 626-808-2469 [email protected] 2023-103

We finally know why NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft stopped communicating — scientists are working on a fix

N ASA engineers have discovered the cause of a communications breakdown between Earth and the interstellar explorer Voyager 1. It would appear that a small portion of corrupted memory exists in one of the spacecraft's computers. 

The glitch caused Voyager 1 to send unreadable data back to Earth, and is found in the NASA spacecraft's flight data subsystem (FDS). That's the system responsible for packaging the probe's science and engineering data before the telemetry modulation unit (TMU) and radio transmitter send it back to mission control. 

The source of the issue began to reveal itself when Voyager 1 operators sent the spacecraft a "poke" on March 3, 2024. This was intended to prompt FDS to send a full memory readout back to Earth.

The readout confirmed to the NASA team that about 3% of the FDS memory had been corrupted, and that this was preventing the computer from carrying out its normal operations.

Related: NASA finds clue while solving Voyager 1's communication breakdown case

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 became the first human-made object to leave the solar system and enter interstellar space in 2012. Voyager 2 followed its spacecraft sibling out of the solar system in 2018, and is still operational and communicating well with  Earth.

After 11 years of interstellar exploration, in Nov. 2023, Voyager 1's binary code — the computer language it uses to communicate with Earth — stopped making sense. Its 0's and 1's didn't mean anything anymore.

"Effectively, the call between the spacecraft and the Earth was still connected, but Voyager's 'voice' was replaced with a monotonous dial tone," Voyager 1's engineering team previously  told Space.com .

The team strongly suspects this glitch is the result of a single chip that's responsible for storing part of the affected portion of the FDS memory ceasing to work.

Currently, however, NASA can’t say for sure what exactly caused that particular issue. The chip could have been struck by a high-speed energetic particle from space or, after 46 years serving Voyager 1, it may simply have worn out.

Voyager 1 currently sits around 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, which means it takes 22.5 hours to receive a radio signal from it — and another 22.5 hours for the spacecraft to receive a response via the Deep Space Network's antennas. Solving this communication issue is thus no mean feat.

Yet, NASA scientists and engineers are optimistic they can find a way to help FDS operate normally, even without the unusable memory hardware.

Solving this issue could take weeks or even months, according to NASA — but if it is resolved, Voyager 1 should be able to resume returning science data about what lies outside the solar system.

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2024 RBC Heritage: Live stream, watch online, TV schedule, channel, tee times, golf coverage, radio

There is no rest for the weary with a signature event on tap this week on the pga tour.

Players make the short trip from Augusta, Georgia, to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, for this week's 2024 RBC Heritage. In total, 69 golfers will tee it up on Harbour Town Golf Links for yet another signature event on the PGA Tour's playing calendar. Unlike the Genesis Invitational or Arnold Palmer Invitational, the RBC Heritage will not feature a 36-hole cut, meaning the entirety of the field will be around for the weekend.

That is music to the ears to those who missed out on the weekend action at the Masters, including Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Wyndham Clark and Brian Harman. Spieth, the 2022 champion, looks to kickstart his season after a disappointing showing at Augusta National. He is no stranger to bouncing back at the RBC Heritage; he followed a missed cut at the year's first major championship with a win a week later in Hilton Head.

If Spieth is to return to the winner's circle, he will have to go through Scottie Scheffler. The world No. 1 remains in the field for now and aims to collect his fourth trophy in his last five tournaments. Fresh off slipping on his second green jacket, Scheffler has widened the gap between him and the rest of the world and shows no signs of slowing down.

Tommy Fleetwood, Collin Morikawa Xander Schauffele, Ludvig Åberg, Will Zalatoris and Max Homa were among those to perform well at the Masters, and they hope that translates to more of the same. Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay and defending champion Matt Fitzpatrick will look for some form. In total, 26 of the top 30 players in the Official World Golf Rankings are set to play.

All times Eastern; streaming start times approximated   

Round 1 - Thursday

Round starts:  7:30 a.m.

PGA Tour Live:  7:30 a.m. -  6 p.m. --  PGA Tour Live

Live TV coverage:  2-6 p.m. on Golf Channel,  fubo  (Try for free) Live streaming:  2-6 p.m. on Peacock

Radio:  12-6 p.m. --  PGA Tour Radio  

Round 2 - Friday

Live TV coverage:  2-6 p.m. on Golf Channel,  fubo  (Try for free) Live streaming: 2-6 p.m. on Peacock

Round 3 - Saturday

Round starts:  7:15 a.m.

PGA Tour Live:  7:15 a.m. -  6 p.m. --  PGA Tour Live

Early TV coverage:  1-3 p.m. on Golf Channel,  fubo  (Try for free) Live streaming: 1-3 p.m. on Peacock

Live TV coverage:  3-6 p.m. on CBS Live simulcast:  3-6 p.m. on  CBSSports.com  and the  CBS Sports App

Radio:  1-6 p.m. --  PGA Tour Radio  

Round 4 - Sunday

Early TV coverage:  1-3 p.m. on Golf Channel,  fubo  (Try for free) Live streaming:  1-3 p.m. on Peacock

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