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NASA ’s Voyager 1 probe is once again air readable radio signaling back to Earth after engineers get a computer glitch that caused the space vehicle tomalfunction in November .
For the first time in five calendar month , Voyager 1 is now transmitting usable data about the wellness and condition of its onboard technology systems back to our planet , NASA ’s Jet Propulsion LaboratoryannouncedMonday ( April 22 ) . However , engineers have yet to fix the software that start the spacecraft to return science data .
NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is depicted in this artist’s concept traveling through interstellar space, or the space between stars, which it entered in 2012.
Voyager 1 is cruise through interstellar space roughly 15 billion miles ( 24 billion klick ) away from Earth , which intend mission control squad have to wait 22.5 time of day for their mastery to reach the spacecraft and another 22.5 hr for a response . Voyager 1 and its twin probe — Voyager 2 , which continues to operate normally after a2 - week blackout last twelvemonth — were launch almost 47 years ago and are the most removed human - made objects in existence .
Engineers first find something wrong with Voyager 1 on Nov. 14 , 2023 , when the investigation suddenly began channelise a ridiculous stream of single and zeros or else of its common neatly packaged scientific discipline and engineering datasets .
commission accountant could distinguish the ballistic capsule was still receiving their instruction , however , indicating that its life-sustaining systems were lock ordinarily .
After receiving data about the health and status of Voyager 1 for the first time in five months, members of the Voyager flight team celebrate in a conference room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on April 20.
Related : A mysterious ' hum ' vibrates interstellar place . Voyager 1 has a recording of it .
In early March , afterthree month of unsuccessful tinkering , NASA engineering teams determined the issue was tied to one of Voyager 1 ’s three onboard computer scheme known as the " flight data point subsystem " ( FDS ) . The FDS is essential for promotion data reap by the probe before they are sent to Earth , according to NASA ’s announcement .
Engineers situate the bug by sending a bidding — or " scoke " — that prompted the FDS to try new succession of codification in its software program in grammatical case the offspring could be resolved by skirting a corrupted section . The command triggered a sign thatdiffered from the flow of gibberishthe spacecraft had been sending back , and that engineerswere able to decrypt .
It turned out a single chip creditworthy for storing a portion of the FDS retention , include some of its computer package codification , had stopped work . The loss of that code signify the investigation ’s science and engineering data were unserviceable , fit in to NASA . To get around the issue , engineers break up the code once store in the crisp and tweet plane section of it into functioning luck of the FDS memory .
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The squad then rewrite some of the reshuffled code so it could work as a whole again .
Engineers write these modifications to the FDS memory on April 18 . Two sidereal day later on , they received a response from Voyager 1 showing that the reshuffling worked . For the first time in five months , the probe ’s message take clear data , prompting celebrations at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California .
However , empty the ballistic capsule ’s science information transmission will take further mending of the debased portions of the FDS package , NASA said in its annunciation .
