Produced by: Tarun Mishra Designed by: Manoj Kumar
After a hiatus since November, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has resumed transmitting operational data about its engineering systems, marking a significant milestone in its ongoing mission.
Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, hold the distinction of being the only spacecraft to venture into interstellar space, the vast expanse between stars.
Source : NASA
Voyager 1 encountered an anomaly in November 2023, halting the transmission of readable science and engineering data to Earth. Despite this, the spacecraft remained responsive to commands.
In March, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory identified a malfunction in Voyager 1's flight data subsystem (FDS), attributed to a defective chip storing crucial software code.
Unable to repair the faulty chip, engineers devised a strategy to relocate and reconfigure the affected code within the FDS memory, ensuring its functionality.
On April 18, engineers successfully transferred and adjusted the portion of code responsible for packaging engineering data, enabling Voyager 1 to resume transmitting status updates.
Confirmation of the modification's success came on April 20 when mission controllers received telemetry indicating the spacecraft's operational health.
Engineers will continue relocating and adjusting other affected sections of the FDS software, including those responsible for returning scientific data, in the coming weeks.
Voyager 1's resumption of data transmission heralds a promising phase in its historic journey, underscoring the resilience and ingenuity of NASA's mission teams.