Antonio Cahun
My love for technology began when I first touched an NES at age 6. Metalhead and otaku, One Piece fan. I started technology writing as a hobby, but now it’s how I make a living. You can follow me on X (Twitter) and on Instagram, where every day I publish stories from my daily life. LinkedIn
NASA engineers finally managed to receive decipherable data from the Voyager 1 probe, after five months of communication problems. The most impressive thing is that it was achieved even with the probe more than 24 billion kilometers away from Earth.
The Voyager 1 space probe was launched in 1977 and was the first to reach interstellar space. In this way it became the furthest spacecraft from Earth, a record that he maintains to this day. Having been active for 47 years, the probe has begun to show signs of aging, which led to it sending apparently useless information to NASA for months.
Communication difficulties began in November 2023, when it began sending a indecipherable and repetitive code pattern. Engineers identified the cause of the problem: a chip malfunction that resulted in the damage of 3% of the flight system’s memory. In turn, this malfunction led to the loss of essential code that rendered Voyager 1’s scientific and engineering data unusable.
The return of the Voyager 1 probe
However, the ingenuity of NASA engineers (pun intended) allowed communication with the probe to be recovered. They sent commands across the Solar System to reboot their computer system and created a plan to store the assigned code elsewhere in the system’s memory. In this way they were able to guarantee its functionality again.
After applying the strategy, on April 20 the engineering team received a response from Voyager 1, confirming the success of the adjustment. This way, The transmission of perfectly readable engineering data was once again possible.
With 47 years of space exploration, Voyager 1 is the oldest probe in operationalong with its twin sister Voyager 2. In addition to being the furthest from the planet, it also holds the records of being the first probe to carry an audible message, the Voyager golden record, and the oldest human-made object. far from the planet.
The Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes have far exceeded the lifetime initially calculated by NASA. According to current calculations, their radioisotope thermoelectric generators that give them electrical energy to operate are expected to continue operating until at least 2025 to maintain communication with Earth.
