NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) announced on Monday that Voyager 1, the 46-year-old space probe currently over 15 billion miles away, has started transmitting intelligible data again, The Guardian reported. The spacecraft had been sending back indecipherable code since December, and the problem was traced back to one of the spacecraft’s three computers, which is responsible for formatting and transmitting scientific and engineering data back to Earth. The JPL team successfully relocated the corrupted code, a task made difficult due to the outdated technology. The solution was transmitted from Earth on April 18, but due to the vast distance, it took two days to verify its success. ‘When the mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on April 20, they saw that the modification worked,’ JPL stated.
Voyager 1, launched in 1977, was originally intended for a five-year mission to study Jupiter and Saturn. However, it has greatly surpassed its initial objective, becoming the first human-made object to enter interstellar space in August 2012. Despite the recent hiccup, Voyager 1 has continued to function normally, and the team is now working to enable the spacecraft to send back scientific data.
These developments come at a time when NASA’s ability to launch astronauts into orbit has been called into question, with Elon Musk’s SpaceX being the only current viable option. This successful remote repair of Voyager 1 highlights NASA’s ongoing relevance and expertise in space exploration.
