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Voyager 1 , one ofNASA ’s longest - lived space mission , is put up a communicating malfunction , and the missionary station team is growing implicated that the far - flung ballistic capsule may not go back . Engineers are currently knead to fix a computing machine error that is preventing the slyness from transmitting data back to Earth , but software limitation and distance are making it hard .
Since Nov. 14 of last yr , the interstellar Voyager 1 investigation has been unable to ship back data collected by its scientific instruments , NASA officials said in astatement . The probe looks like experience and action commands just fine , concord to its California - based bread and butter squad , and is remain to hurtle through interstellar space more than 15 billion mil ( 24 billion kilometers ) from Earth — far beyond the edge of thesolar system . However , without access to the glitching scheme , it ’s hard for the engineers to to the full value the craft ’s position .
This artist concept of NASA Voyager spacecraft with its antenna pointing to Earth.
" It would be the biggest miracle if we get it back , " Voyager undertaking managerSuzanne Doddsaid in an interview withArs Technica .
Since Voyager 1 launched on Sept. 5 , 1977 , it has been traveling by from the Dominicus at some 10.5 miles per 2d ( 17 kilometers per second ) . Voyager 1 officially crossed into interstellar space in 2012 , becoming the first spacecraft to do so . Today , it is the utmost human - made object from Earth .
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Ordinarily , the investigation transmits data back to Earth using its flight data scheme , one of three onboard calculator . But an apparent bug in one of its subsystems , the telemetry modulation unit ( TMU ) , means that instead of the usual binary computer code , it has been commit back string of repeated zeros for months .
Unfortunately , get the malfunction has proved complicated because of the spacecraft ’s eld and distance from Earth . After send a command , the basis team has to wait 45 hours for the workmanship to respond , according toNASA . And because the probe was design and built in the 1970s , much of its onboard applied science is no longer state - of - the - artistic production and the schematics are n’t digitalize .
" The masses that built the ballistic capsule are not live any longer , " Dodd said . " We do have a reasonably good readiness of corroboration , but a lot of it is in paper , so you do this archaeology jab to get documents . "
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If NASA is unable to restore physical contact with Voyager 1 , the agency will still have at least one investigation in interstellar blank . Its twin spacecraft , Voyager 2 , crossed that barrier in 2018 and , for the most part , has maintained inter-group communication with Earth ever since . ( NASA researchersaccidentally trim back impinging with the probefor several week in summer 2023 . ) NASA ’s New Horizons probe is expected to amply exit the solar system sometime in the 2040s .
But for now , the Voyager squad is send to getting the TMU back online . " We certainly have n’t give up , " Dodd said .
