24 billion kilometers away in interstellar space, the 46-year-old spacecraft Voyager 1 has lost communication. NASA, which has been trying to solve the problem for days, announced that the vehicle was able to receive and process data but could not send data back to Earth.
NASA shared an update about Voyager 1 on December 12. The agency announced that one of the vehicle’s three computers had a problem. This problem occurred in the Flight Data System (FDS).
NASA engineers have been trying for 3 days to solve the problem that cut off the vehicle’s communication with Earth
According to NASA, the spacecraft can receive and process commands from Earth. However, the FDS cannot communicate with one of its subsystems called Telemetry Modulation Unit (TMU). This problem causes Voyager I to be unable to send any data to Earth, in other words, to communicate.
The FDS was designed to collect data on the health and condition of the spacecraft, as well as data from the science instruments. This information was then combined by the TMU into a data package to be sent back to Earth. The data is in the form of ones, zeros or binary codes.
According to NASA, the TMU has recently started sending repeated ones and zeros, as if it were stuck. After evaluating all possibilities, the researchers determined that the FDS was the source of the error. Last weekend, the team tried to reboot the FDS and return it to its previous state, but the spacecraft failed to send data again. This suggested that the situation could be serious.
According to the agency, engineers are still working on a solution. However, there has been no new development for 3 days.
Data takes 22 and a half hours to arrive
Of course, we must emphasize that the data is taking a very long time to arrive, and we will not know immediately whether the problem has been solved or not. Voyager 1 is currently exploring the outer solar system and is 24 billion kilometers away from us. This causes the signals to take around 22 hours and 34 minutes to arrive. So the team will have to wait at least 45 hours to send and receive signals.
Voyager 1 is one of the two longest-running spacecraft in human history. In 2012, it became the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space by crossing into the outer region of our solar system, carrying many messages from humanity in case of finding aliens, including greetings in 55 languages. During the years it remained operational, it was sending us signals from far away. So it is a miracle that it survived this long.
We will have to wait and see whether the current problem will be solved. But even if it is solved, experts predicted that it would end its life in 2025. So either now or in a few years, it will be alone in the darkness of space billions of kilometers away.
