NASA has finally uncovered the reason behind the incomprehensible data being transmitted by Voyager 1 for the past five months. The 46-year-old spacecraft regularly sends radio signals as it moves further away from our solar system. However, in November 2023, the signals suddenly became garbled, leaving scientists puzzled.
In March, engineers sent a command to Voyager 1 to retrieve information from its flight data subsystem (FDS), which packages the spacecraft’s data before sending it to Earth. After analyzing the response from the spacecraft, engineers determined that the FDS’s memory had been corrupted. NASA suspects that a single chip responsible for storing a portion of the memory may be malfunctioning due to either an energetic particle from space or simply wearing out after 46 years.
While it may take some time, engineers are confident that they can find a solution to bypass the faulty chip in the FDS. This would allow Voyager 1 to resume sending readable information back to Earth from outside our solar system. Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 has traveled past Saturn and Jupiter before reaching interstellar space in 2012. It is currently documenting the conditions beyond the sun’s protective magnetic field, known as the heliosphere.
Voyager 1 is located over 15 billion miles away from Earth, and it takes approximately 22.5 hours for any radio signal to reach our planet from the spacecraft. Despite the recent setback, NASA is optimistic that
