Contact was restored and probe failure repaired. These were moments of concern, when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was not entirely sure if they would be able to recover this valuable tool and thus obtain valuable information. And it is no wonder, if we consider that this spacecraft that is more than 64 years old was built for a mission of only 5 years.
The failure that affected Voyager 1 in November 2023 was problematic in the flight data subsystem (FDS), one of the computers on board the probe. This problem caused Voyager 1 to send unreadable data to Earth, causing concern among NASA engineers.since they could not understand the information or control the spacecraft correctly.
How Voyager 1 Data Was Recovered and What NASA Did to Fix It
After extensive research, NASA established that the failure was due to a small portion of corrupted memory in the FDS that did not allow the computer to will process and transmit the data properly. Voyager 1’s computers have less than 70 kilobytes of memory in total, the equivalent of a low-resolution computer photo. Old digital tapes are used to record data.
Despite the distance, the age of the probe, and the difficulties of working with software written half a century ago, The body of scientists found a way for the FDS to work without the chip damaged memory and send scientific data again as normal. The good news is that even though it was out of commission for more than 5 months, its mission reports were saved and can be recovered.
What are the main missions that Voyager 1 had for NASA?
Voyager 1 is a robotic space probe launched into the cosmos by the North American agency on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program forto study the outer Solar System and interstellar space. It is the farthest spacecraft from Earth and the first man-made object to enter outer space.
She is a traveler who never tires. Its original mission was to visit Jupiter and Saturn, but after its success, Voyager 1 was sent to explore interstellar space, analyzing the region beyond the influence of the Sun. In total, it traveled more than 24 billion kilometers from Earth and continues to move away at a speed of 61,122 km/h.
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It has the merit of being the first spacecraft in unknown space. On August 25, 2012, it crossed the heliopause, the boundary that marks the limit of the solar wind, becoming the first spacecraft to reach interstellar space. It is located in a place of great interest to scientists because it escapes the influence of the magnetic fields coming from the Sun and enters the plasma domains.
And that’s not all. The ship He carries with him some records that contain sounds and images that portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. They were designed to make known the existence of life on the globe to any possible form of intelligent extraterrestrial life that would find them.
