United States: NASA’s Voyager 1, the interstellar spacecraft launched 46 years ago, has experienced a computer glitch that is causing a communication breakdown with its mission team on Earth.
While the aged spacecraft journeys across unexplored cosmic territory along the outer reaches of the solar system, engineers are currently trying to solve the issue.
Voyager 1 has three onboard computers, including a flight data system that is designed to collect data from the science instruments as well as engineering data about the health and status of the spacecraft.
NASA engineers are working nonstop to find solutions, but this incident has highlighted the challenges faced by deep-space exploration missions that outlast their intended lifespans.
Launched in 1977, the spacecraft and its twin, Voyager 2, are the two longest-operating spacecraft in history.
Currently, Voyager 1 is the farthest spacecraft from Earth at about 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away, while Voyager 2 has traveled more than 12 billion miles (20 billion kilometers) from our planet.
The issue was originally identified by the mission team on November 14, when the flight data system’s telecommunications unit began sending back a repeating pattern of ones and zeroes that seemed to be stuck in a loop.
According to NASA, the Voyager crew transmitted commands over the weekend for the spacecraft to restart the flight data system, but no useful data has returned as of yet.
While engineers strive to get Voyager 1 back to regular operations, the mission is still an enormous achievement for the scientific community.
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