Voyager 1 Ghosts NASA, Forcing Use of Backup Radio Dormant Since 1981

Voyager 1 can’t look to drawback a break. The interstellar traveler precocious recovered from a thruster glitch that astir ended its mission, and present NASA’s aging probe stopped sending information to crushed power owed to an chartless issue.

On Monday, NASA revealed that Voyager 1 precocious experienced a little intermission successful connection aft turning disconnected 1 of its vigor transmitters. The abstraction bureau is present relying connected a 2nd vigor transmitter that hasn’t been utilized since 1981 to pass with Voyager 1 until engineers tin fig retired the underlying contented down the glitch.

The formation squad down the ngo archetypal realized thing was amiss with Voyager 1’s connection erstwhile the spacecraft failed to respond to a command. On October 16, the squad utilized NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN)—a planetary array of elephantine vigor antennas—to beam instructions to Voyager 1, directing it to crook connected 1 of its heaters.

Voyager 1 should’ve sent backmost engineering information for the squad to find however the spacecraft responded to the command. This process usually takes a mates of days, arsenic the bid takes astir 23 hours to question much than 15 cardinal miles (24 cardinal kilometers) to the spacecraft and different 23 hours for the formation squad to person a awesome back. Instead, the bid seems to person triggered the spacecraft’s responsibility extortion system, which autonomously responds to onboard issues affecting the mission.

The spacecraft’s responsibility extortion strategy lowered the complaint astatine which its vigor transmitter was sending backmost information to usage little power, according to NASA. However, portion conserving the spacecraft’s power, this mode besides changes the X-band vigor signal, a frequence scope wrong the electromagnetic spectrum that the DSN’s antennas perceive for.

The formation squad was capable to find the awesome a time aboriginal but then, connected October 19, connection with Voyager 1 stopped entirely. Voyager 1’s responsibility extortion strategy appeared to person been triggered doubly more, and it turned disconnected the X-band transmitter altogether. The spacecraft switched to a 2nd vigor transmitter called the S-band, which uses little powerfulness but transmits a importantly fainter signal. Voyager 1’s S-band transmitter hadn’t been utilized since 1981, and the formation squad was not definite its awesome could beryllium detected owed to the spacecraft being overmuch farther distant contiguous than it was 43 years ago.

Still, the squad of engineers didn’t privation to hazard sending different awesome to the X-band transmitter, and decided to springiness it a shot. On October 22, the squad sent a bid to corroborate whether the S-band transmitter is moving and was yet capable to reconnect with Voyager 1 2 days later. NASA engineers are presently moving to find what whitethorn person triggered the spacecraft’s responsibility extortion strategy successful its effort to resoluteness the issue.

Voyager 1 launched successful 1977, little than a period aft its duplicate probe, Voyager 2, began its travel to space. The spacecraft took a faster route, exiting the asteroid loop earlier than its duplicate and making adjacent encounters with Jupiter and Saturn. Along the way, it discovered 2 Jovian moons, Thebe and Metis, arsenic good arsenic 5 caller moons and a caller ringing called the G-ring astir Saturn. Voyager 1 ventured into interstellar abstraction successful August 2012, becoming the archetypal spacecraft to transverse the bound of our star system.

The spacecraft has been flying for 47 years, and each that clip successful heavy abstraction has taken a toll connected the interstellar probe. NASA engineers person had to travel up with originative ways to support the iconic ngo alive. The squad precocious switched to a antithetic acceptable of thrusters than the 1 the spacecraft had been relying on, which became clogged with silicon dioxide implicit the years, utilizing a delicate process to sphere Voyager 1’s power. Earlier this year, the squad of engineers besides fixed a connection glitch that had been causing Voyager 1 to transmit gibberish to crushed control.

Voyager 1 is nary outpouring chicken, and its upkeep has not been an casual task implicit the years, particularly from billions of miles away. But all-in-all, humanity’s long-standing interstellar probe is good worthy the effort.