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NASA engineers re-establish connection with Voyager 1 after losing contact with the spacecraft in November
On Monday, NASA reported that it has re-established communication with Voyager 1, the farthest distant man-made object in the universe, located 15.1 billion miles away.
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NASA's longest-running spacecraft , Voyager 1 back in touch with Earth after five months of silence
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The latest issue experienced by Voyager 1 first cropped up in November 2023
NASA engineers have been able to decipher signals from Voyager 1 for the first time in five months thanks to their innovative approach to resolving a communication issue on board the spacecraft that is the furthest from Earth.
At 46 years old, Voyager 1 is presently situated at a distance of roughly 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers). Over the past few years, the probe has exhibited various anomalies and indications of aging.
Voyager 1 sends data back to Earth for the first time in 5 months
Voyager 1's most recent problem started in November 2023 when the telemetry modulation unit of the flight data system started transmitting an unintelligible repeating sequence of code. However, according to the press statement from NASA, the spacecraft is currently providing information regarding the condition of its onboard engineering systems.
The flight data system of Voyager 1 gathers data from its scientific instruments and combines it with engineering data to represent the spacecraft's current state of health. That data is sent to mission control on Earth in binary code, which is just a string of ones and zeros. Over the past three months, the probe has been consistently transmitting a radio signal to its mission control team on Earth; nevertheless, the broadcast was devoid of any useful information.
On April 20, the mission team obtained the first comprehensive information regarding the condition and state of Voyager 1's engineering systems. Although the team is currently going over the data, everything they have thus far looked at points to Voyager 1 being in good health. The team's discovery of a single chip came about as a result of a deft use of trial and error and the solving of a puzzle.
The affected software components of the system, including those in charge of returning the crucial scientific data Voyager 1 is gathering, will also be moved by the team in the upcoming weeks. The Voyager 1 along with its twin Voyager 2, are the longest-running spacecraft in history. Originally intended to survive five years, they launched in 1977.
Both spacecraft have achieved their initial objectives of flying by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune decades ago, and thanks to their extraordinarily extended lifespans, they have offered new insights about our solar system and beyond.
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