NASA Scrambles To Fix A Serious Glitch In Voyager 1 Probe 15 Billion Miles Away
NASA says that the Voyager 1 spacecraft has traveled farther than any other craft to date. The space agency has reported that there is “no quick fix” to the issue. NASA engineers have attempted to reset the impaired onboard computer, which is only one of three onboard Voyager 1.
The computer that is troubled is called the flight data system (FDS). While the spacecraft remains capable of receiving and executing commands from Earth, the FDS is not communicating properly with one of the spacecraft’s subsystems. A direct result of the issue is that no science or engineering data can be transmitted back to NASA on Earth, which is obviously not a good thing.
NASA launched Voyager 1 in 1977, which means it has been in service for 46 years. The original purpose of the spacecraft was to fly by Jupiter and Saturn and collect data on the two planets. Since then, it has crossed into interstellar space and has continued to collect data. Voyager 1 was also the first spacecraft to cross the heliosphere, the boundary where the influences outside our solar system are stronger than that of the Sun.
Making the situation even more difficult is the fact that it takes mission controllers on Earth 22.5 hours to reach Voyager 1. This results in the engineers having to wait 45 hours to get a response back from the spacecraft and determine whether the new command to attempt to fix the issue has its intended outcome.
