Image provider: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA scientists are trying to understand the error system data that the interstellar Voyager spacecraft is transmitting from about 20 light-hours away from Earth, about 45 years after it launched.
Spacecraft 1 was launched in September 1977 and is currently the furthest spacecraft from Earth, traveling in space about 14.5 billion miles (23.3 billion km) away. It would take about 20 light hours to travel from the spacecraft.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is investigating a glitch in the systematic data the interstellar explorer is collecting. Readings from the probe’s attitude matching and control system (AACS) “do not reflect what is actually happening on board,” according to JPL.
Everything about AACS shows it’s working properly, however the telemetry data it sends back to Earth is “invalid”, producing what appears to be randomly generated data that doesn’t match anything. any state the system may be in.
AACS controls Voyager 1’s orientation and keeps its high-gain antenna trained on Earth for optimal data transmission.
The spacecraft will be put into a functionally reduced “safe mode” if the onboard fault protection system is activated. According to NASA JPL, its signal is still strong, but the data appears to be malformed.
NASA considers anomalies like this to be normal for a spacecraft of the same age.
“A mystery like this is on par with the course at this stage of the Voyager mission,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager 1 and 2 project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. said in a statement.
“Both spacecraft are nearly 45 years old, far beyond what mission planners predicted. We’re also in interstellar space – a highly radiating environment for which no spacecraft has yet existed. Which pier flew in first. So there are some big technical challenges, but I think if there’s a way to solve this with AACS, our team will figure it out.”
Dodd said the team can only “adapt” to the glitch if they don’t identify its source. If the source is found, it can be fixed with a software update or through one of the spacecraft’s redundant hardware systems.
According to NASA, spacecraft 1 was launched from Cape Canaveral after spacecraft 2 took off, but due to its faster route, it overtook its twin to fly by Jupiter in 1979 and later. Saturn in 1980, according to NASA. It also goes further than Voyager 2, which is currently traveling about 12.1 billion miles from Earth.
Voyager 1 was the first man-made object to fly into interstellar space and in 1998 overtook NASA’s Pioneer 10 as the most distant man-made object. It reached interstellar space in August 2012, and among other things, measurement of the density of matter in interstellar space. It will eventually exit the solar system but not for a long time.
“If we define our solar system as the Sun and everything revolves mainly around the Sun, then Voyager 1 will stay within the limits of the solar system until it emerges from the Oort cloud in 14,000 to 28,000 years from now”. NASA Notes.
Both spacecraft carry a message on a gilded copper plate in case extraterrestrials find the spacecraft one day. It also includes a player and instructions describing how to play the content. The disc included greetings in 55 languages and 90 minutes mostly western music.
