As of: February 8, 2024, 11:13 a.m
By: Tanja Banner
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There is great concern about the NASA space probe “Voyager 1”: it has no longer been sending data since November 2023.
Experts have a suspicion and a problem.
Pasadena – The oldest NASA space probe that is still active has not been working properly since mid-November.
“Voyager 1” launched into space in the summer of 1977 and has long since left the solar system behind.
From interstellar space (current distance from Earth: around 24.3 billion kilometers), the probe actually sends important data to the researchers at the US space organization NASA.
But that has no longer been the case since December.
At the time it was said that troubleshooting Voyager 1 could take several weeks.
Surname: |
Voyager 1 |
|---|---|
Begin: |
September 5, 1977, 12:56 p.m. (UTC) |
Distance to Earth: |
more than 24 billion kilometers |
simple signal transit time |
22 hours and 35 minutes |
Instruments active: |
4 out of 10 |
NASA is still working on a solution to the defective Voyager 1 probe
In an update on
We can talk to the probe and it can hear us, but this is a slow process given the probe’s incredible distance from Earth.”
In fact, the enormous distance between Voyager 1 and Earth has a major impact on the repair work: it currently takes 22 hours and 35 minutes for a signal from Earth to reach the space probe.
A possible reaction from the probe would take just as long to reach the researchers on Earth - a difficult situation.
NASA's Voyager project manager hopes for a miracle
“It would be the biggest miracle if we got her back.
“We haven’t given up yet,” explains “Voyager” project manager Suzanne Dodd in an interview with the
Ars Technica
portal .
She is confident: “There are other things we can try.”
However, she then adds a statement that makes you think: “But this is by far the most serious problem since I became a project manager.” Dodd has been responsible for the “Voyager” space probes at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) since 2010 .
The computer problem that the NASA probe has been struggling with for months is preventing “Voyager 1” from sending data to Earth.
NASA therefore does not receive any scientific data or basic data about the space probe.
The experts currently know nothing about the space probe's drive, the energy supply or the control systems.
In December, NASA said the probe was only sending a "repeating pattern of ones and zeros, as if it were stuck."
NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is still alive, but not communicating
The probe is currently only sending a carrier tone to Earth, which shows the NASA team that the probe is still alive.
Changes in this signal tell experts that “Voyager 1” is receiving commands from Earth.
“Unfortunately, we haven’t cracked the nut yet, haven’t solved the problem and haven’t gotten any telemetry data back,” says Dodd.
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Illustration: A “Voyager” spacecraft from the US space agency Nasa in space.
© imago/Science Photo Library
Since November, researchers at NASA have had a guess as to what the problem with “Voyager 1” might be.
One of the three computers on board Voyager 1, the Flight Data System (FDS), does not appear to be communicating correctly with a subsystem called the Telemetry Modulation Unit (TMU).
According to NASA, this means that the data is not sent to Earth.
According to Dodd, the engineering team is now “99.9 percent sure” that the problem is with the FDS.
The most likely explanation appears to be corrupt memory in the FDS.
NASA's Voyager team has a difficult task
However, the missing “Voyager” data makes the team’s work more difficult.
“It's probably in the FDS storage somewhere.
A bit was swapped or damaged.
But without telemetry, we cannot see where the FDS memory is damaged,” explains the project manager.
For other parts that showed signs of wear over time or no longer worked, NASA was able to switch to backup systems in some cases.
This is no longer possible in the case of the FDS: the backup FDS already failed in 1981.
Engineers are working on the Voyager 2 probe.
The Voyager twins are the furthest man-made objects from Earth.
© -/NASA/JPL-Caltech/dpa
It seems like it will be some time before we hear anything positive about Voyager 1 again - if at all.
Given that it has been in space for more than 45 years, it is also possible that the probe will never be heard from again.
It would be a great loss for space travel, because very few space probes (in addition to “Voyager 1”, these include the twin probe “Voyager 2” and “Pioneer 10”) are in interstellar space.
“Voyager 2” last had problems in the summer of 2023 - at that time, NASA was able to reestablish contact using an “interstellar scream”.
The Voyager 1 space probe is legendary
“Voyager 1” is legendary in space travel: on its long journey to the edge of the solar system, it visited several planets and provided research with a wealth of data.
Among other things, she also took the famous “Pale Blue Dot” photo, which shows the Earth as a tiny pale blue dot in the vast space.
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