NASA Figured Out Why Its Voyager 1 Probe Has Been Glitching for Months

After months of sending unusable knowledge to mission management, there’s lastly hope for the Voyager 1 spacecraft. NASA engineers pinpointed the trigger behind the mission’s odd anomaly, and suppose they might help the interstellar probe make sense once more.

Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory imagine the Voyager 1 spacecraft has been sending nonsensical knowledge as a consequence of corrupted reminiscence {hardware} within the spacecraft’s flight knowledge system (FDS). “The workforce suspects {that a} single chip chargeable for storing a part of the affected portion of the FDS reminiscence isn’t working,” NASA wrote in an replace.

FDS collects knowledge from Voyager’s science devices, in addition to engineering knowledge concerning the well being of the spacecraft, and combines them right into a single package deal that’s transmitted to Earth via one of many probe’s subsystems, the telemetry modulation unit (TMU), in binary code.

FDS and TMU have been having hassle speaking with each other. Consequently, TMU has been sending knowledge to mission management in a repeating sample of ones and zeroes. NASA’s engineers aren’t fairly certain what corrupted the FDS reminiscence {hardware}; they suppose that both the chip was hit by an lively particle from house or that it’s simply worn out after working for 46 years.

Voyager 1 launched in 1977, lower than a month after its twin probe, Voyager 2, started its personal journey to house. The probe ventured into interstellar house in August 2012, turning into the primary spacecraft to go away the heliosphere.

The issue first started in Could 2022, when the probe abruptly began sending nonsensical angle articulation and management (AACS) knowledge. Engineers resolved the difficulty by sending the telemetry knowledge via one of many spacecraft’s different computer systems. In December 2023, Voyager 1 began talking gibberish once more.

On March 1, the workforce despatched a “poke” to the spacecraft’s knowledge system, a command that lightly prompts FDS to attempt completely different sequences in its software program package deal in an effort to pinpoint the corrupted part. Two days later, Voyager 1 despatched a sign that contained a readout of your complete FDS reminiscence, which helped the workforce pinpoint the supply of the glitch by evaluating this reminiscence readout with a earlier one to search for discrepancies within the code.

“Utilizing the readout, the workforce has confirmed that about 3% of the FDS reminiscence has been corrupted, stopping the pc from finishing up regular operations,” NASA wrote in its replace.

The engineers are hoping to resolve the difficulty by discovering a approach for FDS to function usually with out the corrupted reminiscence {hardware}, enabling Voyager 1 to start transmitting knowledge concerning the cosmos and proceed its journey via deep house.

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