nasa makes contact with voyager 2

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NASA has regained contact with Voyager 2 after losing it for a week

After accidentally turning the Voyager 2 spacecraft away from Earth and losing contact with it, NASA engineers have now heard a “heartbeat signal” that shows it is still okay

By Leah Crane

1 August 2023

An artist’s impression of NASA’s Voyager spacecraft

On 21 July, NASA lost touch with the Voyager 2 spacecraft, which is nearly 20 billion kilometres away from Earth. Now, operators have heard from Voyager 2 again – the spacecraft is still working, but they are still struggling to regain full communication.

Voyager 2 launched in 1977 and has been hurtling towards the outer edges of the solar system and into interstellar space since then. It is now the second-most distant spacecraft from Earth after its sibling craft, Voyager 1 , which is almost 24 billion kilometres away. Several of its science instruments, including its magnetometer and its cosmic ray detector, are still working 46 years after launch and sending data back to Earth.

Or they were, at least, until 21 July, when a series of commands from mission control inadvertently shifted the orientation of the spacecraft, pointing its antenna just 2 degrees away from Earth. That meant that the signals from the spacecraft weren’t reaching satellite dishes on the ground , and operators couldn’t send any signals to try to turn it back towards us.

Thankfully, they aren’t completely in the dark. On 31 July, NASA detected a faint hint of what is called a “carrier signal” from Voyager 2. Generally, if the antenna was aligned properly, this signal would contain real-time data from the spacecraft, but because it isn’t aligned the signal wasn’t strong enough to extract anything from it.

Voyager 2 sent back its first detailed data from interstellar space

“We see the ‘heartbeat’ signal from the spacecraft… so we know the spacecraft is alive and operating,” said Suzanne Dodd , the manager of the Voyager project at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, in a statement sent to New Scientist . While catching the signal was unexpected, the fact that the spacecraft itself is fine wasn’t a big surprise – it has been scudding along for 46 years, after all.

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But if anything were to go wrong, we would have no way to send any commands to Voyager 2 while the antenna is pointed away from Earth. “We are now generating a new command to attempt to point the spacecraft antenna toward Earth,” said Dodd. “There is a low probability that this will work.”

Even if it doesn’t work, all is not lost – Voyager 2 is programmed to automatically reset its orientation a few times a year in case of situations just like this one. The next automatic reset will be on 15 October, and communication should resume then. Until then, the spacecraft’s operators will keep trying to turn it around and continue to monitor the heartbeat signal.

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NASA hears signal from Voyager 2 spacecraft after mistakenly cutting contact

FILE - In this Aug. 4, 1977, photo provided by NASA, the “Sounds of Earth” record is mounted on the Voyager 2 spacecraft in the Safe-1 Building at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla. On Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023, NASA’s Deep Space Network sent a command to correct a problem with its antenna. It took more than 18 hours for the signal to reach Voyager 2 _ more than 12 billion miles away _ and another 18 hours to hear back. On Friday, Aug. 4, the spacecraft started returning data again. (AP Photo/NASA, File)

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — After days of silence, NASA has heard from Voyager 2 in interstellar space billions of miles away.

Flight controllers accidentally sent a wrong command nearly two weeks ago that tilted the spacecraft’s antenna away from Earth and severed contact.

NASA’s Deep Space Network , giant radio antennas across the globe, picked up a “heartbeat signal,” meaning the 46-year-old craft is alive and operating, project manager Suzanne Dodd said in an email Tuesday.

The news “buoyed our spirits,” Dodd said. Flight controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California will now try to turn Voyager 2’s antenna back toward Earth.

If the command doesn’t work — and controllers doubt it will — they’ll have to wait until October for an automatic spacecraft reset. The antenna is only 2% off-kilter.

“That is a long time to wait, so we’ll try sending up commands several times” before then, Dodd said.

Voyager 2 rocketed into space in 1977, along with its identical twin Voyager 1, on a quest to explore the outer planets.

Still communicating and working fine, Voyager 1 is now 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, making it the most distant spacecraft.

Voyager 2 trails its twin in interstellar space at more than 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from Earth. At that distance, it takes more than 18 hours for a signal to travel one way.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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NASA’s Voyager 2 Is Out of Contact but Not Lost in Space

By Katrina Miller

Voyager 2, the aging explorer of our solar system, appears to be alive and well, NASA officials said on Tuesday. But they may not be able to communicate with the spacecraft for at least the next two months.

On Friday, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that they had lost contact with Voyager 2, which is over 12 billion miles from Earth. Engineers on the ground sent an incorrect command to the spacecraft on July 21 that knocked its antenna two degrees away from the Earth. That made it impossible for the mission team to send or receive signals.

But on Tuesday morning, officials from the Deep Space Network, a global system used to operate numerous active space missions, detected a carrier signal from Voyager 2. That means the spacecraft is still broadcasting, though the signal is too weak for transmitting data.

Background: A long, strange trip through the solar system

Voyager 2 launched to space on Aug. 20, 1977, to take a tour of our solar system’s outer planets . It’s the only spacecraft to have visited Uranus and Neptune, and the second mission to cross the boundary that separates our solar system from the rest of the Milky Way, an area commonly referred to as interstellar space.

This isn’t the first time NASA has lost the ability to talk to the spacecraft. In 2020, scientists managing the Deep Space Network shut down the sole radio dish capable of talking to Voyager 2 for repairs and upgrades. When it came back online in March 2021, the Voyager 2 was still functioning.

A few weeks after Voyager 2 began its journey, NASA launched its twin, Voyager 1, which followed a different trajectory and reached interstellar space first . Mission specialists are still in contact with that spacecraft.

Why It Matters: A mission that just keeps going

While the spacecraft is nearly 46 years into its journey, it continues to produce useful scientific data about how the environment changes outside of our solar system, and how the heliosphere — a bubble of radiation from our sun — interacts with interstellar space.

But if something goes wrong before scientists recover communications with the spacecraft, they have no way of fixing it. That’s a bigger concern than what scientific data might be lost in the near term, a spokeswoman for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said.

Earlier this year, Voyager 2 switched to running its five instruments on backup power to prolong the life of the mission. Scientists anticipate that one of these instruments will need to be shut down completely in 2026, and others in successive years, to keep the mission functioning for as long as possible.

What’s Next: The people of Earth can wait

The mission’s managers will attempt to use the Deep Space Network on Wednesday to send Voyager 2 a command to reorient the direction of its antenna back toward Earth, according to the laboratory spokeswoman. It will take about 18 hours for the signal to arrive at the spacecraft, and another 18 before scientists on Earth will know if it worked.

If the command fails, scientists will have to wait until Oct. 15. On that day, the mission’s computer is programmed to automatically point the antenna back toward Earth, which they hope will restore communications.

“It’s a 46-year-old spacecraft — we don’t like being out of contact with it,” the spokeswoman said. “On the other hand, it’s 46. It’s done well so far. So we have a lot of confidence that it’ll be OK.”

Katrina Miller is a science reporting fellow for The Times. She recently earned her Ph.D. in particle physics from the University of Chicago. More about Katrina Miller

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NASA loses contact with Voyager Two after a programming error on Earth

NASA recently lost contact with its Voyager 2 spacecraft. NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to Suzanne Dodd, project manager for the Voyager Interstellar mission, about what happened.

Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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NASA regains contact with Voyager 2 after it went dark for two weeks

The agency 'shouted' a command to the probe across 12.3 billion miles of space..

NASA has reestablished connection with Voyager 2 after a tense two weeks of not hearing anything from the probe. On July 21st, the agency lost contact with Voyager 2 following a series of planned commands that mistakenly pointed it two degrees away from our planet. While it is scheduled to automatically reset its orientation on October 15th, it's not surprising that NASA scientists didn't just wait for that date to know whether the spacecraft is still running. Voyager 2 was launched way back in 1977, and it's one of the only two probes sending us back valuable data on interstellar space.

For a few days after July 21st, NASA wasn't even sure what the spacecraft's condition was. It wasn't until August 1st that multiple ground antennas from the Deep Space Network (DSN) were able to detect a carrier signal from the probe. A carrier signal is what a spacecraft uses to beam data back to the ground, but NASA said the one DSN detected was too weak to be able to transmit any information. Still, it was enough to confirm that Voyager 2 was still working and that it hadn't deviated from its trajectory.

Instead of simply waiting for October, Voyager's ground team decided to take action. They concocted a plan to "shout" a command to the spacecraft across over 12.3 billion miles of space using the DSN, telling it to turn its antenna back to Earth. The whole process illustrated just how vast outer space truly is: It took 18.5 hours for that message to reach the probe, and another 18.5 hours for NASA to start receiving science and telemetry data again, indicating that Voyager 2 had received the command.

This isn't the first time NASA has had issues with the spacecraft. In 2020, it had to provide tech assistance from billions of miles away after it tripped a system that shut off its scientific gear to conserve electricity. Voyager 2 entered interstellar space — that means it exited the plasma bubble created by our sun — back in 2018, becoming the second human-made object to do so after Voyager 1. Although NASA believes that both Voyager 1 and 2 could remain in contact with the DSN until 2036, it also says that "science data won't likely be collected after 2025." The spacecraft could only be providing us information on interstellar space for less than two years, so it stands to reason that scientists don't want to waste a single day it can send data back to Earth.

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NASA's Voyager Has Made a Full Recovery After Glitch Nearly Ended the Historic Mission

The iconic mission has resumed regular science operations for the first time since november 2023..

Voyager fans, rejoice! The 46-year-old spacecraft is once again probing interstellar space for cosmic wonders following a seven month-long hiatus.

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NASA announced that its iconic mission is back to normal operations, with all four of its instruments returning science data for the first time following a technical issue that first began in November 2023.

Voyager 1 launched in 1977, so it’s operating on vintage tech. The storied spacecraft is exploring the outermost edge of the Sun’s domain, combining its observations with data from newer missions to get a better understanding of how the heliosphere interacts with interstellar space. For decades, the spacecraft has been a reliable source of data on the universe, discovering new moons, active volcanoes, and planetary rings.

Late last year, however, the spacecraft started talking back to Earth in unusable gibberish . In March, the team behind the mission pinpointed the cause behind Voyager 1's nonsensical data : a single chip responsible for storing part of the affected portion of the spacecraft’s flight data system (FDS) memory.

FDS collects data from Voyager’s science instruments, as well as engineering data about the health of the spacecraft, and combines them into a single package that’s transmitted to Earth in binary code. When it started glitching, however, the mission began sending data in a repeating pattern of ones and zeroes.

To help resolve the issue, the engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory placed the affected code elsewhere in the FDS memory rather than fixing the corrupted chip itself.

On May 19, the mission team carried out the second part of Voyager’s rescue mission by beaming a command to the spacecraft. Two of the four science instruments on board Voyager 1 returned to their normal operating modes immediately while two other instruments required some additional work, according to NASA. Now, the space agency happily revealed that all four instruments are returning usable science data.

Voyager 1 launched less than a month after its twin probe, Voyager 2, began its own journey to space. On August 25, 2012, Voyager 1 became the first human-made object to reach interstellar space and travel beyond the Sun’s realm of influence. The spacecraft is currently 15.14 billion miles away, which makes its repair operations all that much more impressive.

For more spaceflight in your life, follow us on X and bookmark Gizmodo’s dedicated Spaceflight page .

NASA listens for Voyager 2 spacecraft after wrong command cuts contact

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA is listening for any peep from Voyager 2 after losing contact with the spacecraft billions of miles away.

Hurtling ever deeper into interstellar space, Voyager 2 has been out of touch ever since flight controllers accidentally sent a wrong command more than a week ago that tilted its antenna away from Earth. The spacecraft’s antenna shifted a mere 2%, but it was enough to cut communications.

Although it’s considered a long shot, NASA said Monday that its huge dish antenna in Canberra, Australia, is on the lookout for any stray signals from Voyager 2, currently more than 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) distant. It takes more than 18 hours for a signal to reach Earth from so far away.

In the coming week, the Canberra antenna — part of NASA’s Deep Space Network — also will bombard Voyager 2’s vicinity with the correct command, in hopes it hits its mark, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the Voyager missions.

Otherwise, NASA will have to wait until October for an automatic spacecraft reset that should restore communication, according to officials.

Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 to explore the outer planets, just a couple weeks ahead of its identical twin, Voyager 1.

Still in touch with Earth, Voyager 1 is now nearly 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away, making it humanity’s most distant spacecraft.

Voyager, NASA’s Longest-Lived Mission, Logs 45 Years in Space

This archival image taken at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on March 23, 1977, shows engineers preparing the Voyager 2 spacecraft ahead of its launch later that year.

Launched in 1977, the twin Voyager probes are NASA’s longest-operating mission and the only spacecraft ever to explore interstellar space.

NASA’s twin Voyager probes have become, in some ways, time capsules of their era: They each carry an eight-track tape player for recording data, they have about 3 million times less memory than modern cellphones, and they transmit data about 38,000 times slower than a 5G internet connection.

Yet the Voyagers remain on the cutting edge of space exploration. Managed and operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, they are the only probes to ever explore interstellar space – the galactic ocean that our Sun and its planets travel through.

The Sun and the planets reside in the heliosphere, a protective bubble created by the Sun’s magnetic field and the outward flow of solar wind (charged particles from the Sun). Researchers – some of them younger than the two distant spacecraft – are combining Voyager’s observations with data from newer missions to get a more complete picture of our Sun and how the heliosphere interacts with interstellar space.

NASA’s Solar System Interactive lets users see where the Voyagers are right now relative to the planets, the Sun, and other spacecraft. View it yourself here . Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“The heliophysics mission fleet provides invaluable insights into our Sun, from understanding the corona or the outermost part of the Sun’s atmosphere, to examining the Sun’s impacts throughout the solar system, including here on Earth, in our atmosphere, and on into interstellar space,” said Nicola Fox, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Over the last 45 years, the Voyager missions have been integral in providing this knowledge and have helped change our understanding of the Sun and its influence in ways no other spacecraft can.”

The Voyagers are also ambassadors, each carrying a golden record containing images of life on Earth, diagrams of basic scientific principles, and audio that includes sounds from nature, greetings in multiple languages, and music. The gold-coated records serve as a cosmic “message in a bottle” for anyone who might encounter the space probes. At the rate gold decays in space and is eroded by cosmic radiation, the records will last more than a billion years.

45 Years of Voyager I and II

Launched in 1977, NASA’s twin Voyager spacecraft inspired the world with pioneering visits to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Their journey continues 45 years later as both probes explore interstellar space, the region outside the protective heliosphere created by our Sun. Researchers – some younger than the spacecraft – are now using Voyager data to solve mysteries of our solar system and beyond.

This archival photo shows engineers working on vibration acoustics and pyro shock testing of NASA’s Voyager on Nov. 18, 1976. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Voyager 1 acquired this image of a volcanic explosion on Io on March 4, 1979, about 11 hours before the spacecraft’s closest approach to the moon of Jupiter.

Neptune’s green-blue atmosphere was shown in greater detail than ever before in this image from NASA’s Voyager 2 as the spacecraft rapidly approached its encounter with the giant planet in August 1989.

This updated version of the iconic "Pale Blue Dot" image taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft uses modern image-processing software and techniques to revisit the well-known Voyager view while attempting to respect the original data and intent of those who planned the images.

This illustrated graphic was made to mark Voyager 1’s entry into interstellar space in 2012. It puts solar system distances in perspective, with the scale bar in astronomical units and each set distance beyond 1 AU (the average distance between the Sun and Earth) representing 10 times the previous distance.

This graphic highlights some of the Voyager mission’s key accomplishments. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Full image details

This graphic provides some of the mission’s key statistics from 2018, when NASA’s Voyager 2 probe exited the heliosphere. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Full image details

Beyond Expectations

Voyager 2 launched on Aug. 20, 1977, quickly followed by Voyager 1 on Sept. 5. Both probes traveled to Jupiter and Saturn, with Voyager 1 moving faster and reaching them first. Together, the probes unveiled much about the solar system’s two largest planets and their moons. Voyager 2 also became the first and only spacecraft to fly close to Uranus (in 1986) and Neptune (in 1989), offering humanity remarkable views of – and insights into – these distant worlds.

While Voyager 2 was conducting these flybys, Voyager 1 headed toward the boundary of the heliosphere. Upon exiting it in 2012 , Voyager 1 discovered that the heliosphere blocks 70% of cosmic rays, or energetic particles created by exploding stars. Voyager 2, after completing its planetary explorations, continued to the heliosphere boundary, exiting in 2018 . The twin spacecraft’s combined data from this region has challenged previous theories about the exact shape of the heliosphere.

Voyager 1 and 2 have accomplished a lot since they launched in 1977. This infographic highlights the mission’s major milestones, including visiting the four outer planets and exiting the heliosphere, or the protective bubble of magnetic fields and particles created by the Sun.

“Today, as both Voyagers explore interstellar space, they are providing humanity with observations of uncharted territory,” said Linda Spilker, Voyager’s deputy project scientist at JPL. “This is the first time we’ve been able to directly study how a star, our Sun, interacts with the particles and magnetic fields outside our heliosphere, helping scientists understand the local neighborhood between the stars, upending some of the theories about this region, and providing key information for future missions.”

The Long Journey

Over the years, the Voyager team has grown accustomed to surmounting challenges that come with operating such mature spacecraft, sometimes calling upon retired colleagues for their expertise or digging through documents written decades ago.

Each Voyager is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator containing plutonium, which gives off heat that is converted to electricity. As the plutonium decays, the heat output decreases and the Voyagers lose electricity. To compensate , the team turned off all nonessential systems and some once considered essential, including heaters that protect the still-operating instruments from the frigid temperatures of space. All five of the instruments that have had their heaters turned off since 2019 are still working, despite being well below the lowest temperatures they were ever tested at.

Get the Latest JPL News

Recently, Voyager 1 began experiencing an issue that caused status information about one of its onboard systems to become garbled. Despite this, the system and spacecraft otherwise continue to operate normally, suggesting the problem is with the production of the status data, not the system itself. The probe is still sending back science observations while the engineering team tries to fix the problem or find a way to work around it.

“The Voyagers have continued to make amazing discoveries, inspiring a new generation of scientists and engineers,” said Suzanne Dodd, project manager for Voyager at JPL. “We don’t know how long the mission will continue, but we can be sure that the spacecraft will provide even more scientific surprises as they travel farther away from the Earth.”

More About the Mission

A division of Caltech in Pasadena, JPL built and operates the Voyager spacecraft. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/voyager

News Media Contact

Calla Cofield

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

626-808-2469

[email protected]

Voyager 1 Is Back! Legendary Probe Makes Contact From Interstellar Space

A friendly voice we've been longing to hear is drifting back to us from interstellar space, 24 billion kilometers away (15 billion miles).

Voyager 1 – the most distant human-made object to Earth – is, once again, sounding like itself on the deep space radio network, after half a year of spewing gobbledegook .

Scientists at NASA are elated.

"We're back, baby!" reads an X post from NASA on June 15.

"Our Voyager 1 spacecraft is conducting normal science operations for the first time since November 2023. All four instruments – which study plasma waves, magnetic fields, and particles – are returning usable science data."

It's the first time in many months that the 46-year-old probe can share all that it's probing on the near-freezing borderlands of our Solar System, outside the influence of our Sun.

In November of 2023, Voyager 1 suddenly started sending back random readouts that didn't make any sense to scientists.

The issue seemed to stem from a small, corrupted chip in the probe's onboard memory system, possibly caused by old age, or maybe triggered by energetic particles in interstellar space.

Because the technology on board Voyager 1 is so outdated, engineers at NASA had to consult manuals from the 1970s to try and get around the problem.

On May 19, the team at NASA succeeded in getting two of the four science instruments on board Voyager 1 to return readable data back to Earth.

"Kinda like when your power goes out and you have to go around your whole house resetting all your electronics… That's basically what my team and I are doing now," explained an official account for Voyager 1 on X.

Now, all four science instruments on board the deep space probe can return usable data to our planet once again.

Voyager 1 and its sibling, Voyager 2, are exploring a region of space never directly encountered by a human-made object before, so missing out on any data is quite the letdown.

These probes are the only way scientists can directly study the interstellar medium, and their measurements have already revealed important details about how our Solar System is shaped and how far the Sun's 'solar bubble' extends.

While the Voyager space probes are often said to have 'left our Solar System,' they have only exited the heliopause and are yet to make it to the hypothesized Oort cloud , which is thought to be the outermost zone of our gravitationally bound system.

Sadly, both Voyagers will never make it to the icy edge in working order , as their generators on board steadily continue to lose power. At its current speed, experts at NASA predict Voyager 1 will take three centuries to reach the Oort cloud. To get to the other side of the cloud would take another 30,000 years.

Engineers predict Voyager 1 will have at least one instrument still going by 2025, and it could continue talking on NASA's Deep Space Network through 2036. It all depends on how much power the probe has left by that time.

In the last few years, Voyager 1 has shown signs of aging. Apart from this most recent event, in 2022 , a broken computer onboard began corrupting outgoing messages. The problem was ultimately fixed, but it took several days. Even traveling at the speed of light , radio messages from the probe take approximately 22.5 hours to return to Earth.

A team at NASA is now working on maintenance to do with Voyager 1's digital tape recorder. This memory system only records 48 seconds of high rate data three times a week from the plasma wave instrument on board.

This means that when Voyager 1 loses its ability to communicate properly, all its other information is lost.

Who knows what we missed the last six months?

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June 15, 2024

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NASA's Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, is doing science again after problem

by Adithi Ramakrishnan

NASA's Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, is sending science data again.

Voyager 1's four instruments are back in business after a computer problem in November, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said this week. The team first received meaningful information again from Voyager 1 in April, and recently commanded it to start studying its environment again.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 is drifting through interstellar space, or the space between star systems. Before reaching this region, the spacecraft discovered a thin ring around Jupiter and several of Saturn's moons. Its instruments are designed to collect information about plasma waves, magnetic fields and particles.

Voyager 1 is over 15 billion miles (24.14 billion kilometers) from Earth. Its twin Voyager 2—also in interstellar space —is more than 12 billion miles (19.31 billion kilometers) away.

© 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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Voyager 1 Returning Science Data From All Four Instruments

The spacecraft has resumed gathering information about interstellar space.

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is conducting normal science operations for the first time following a technical issue that arose in November 2023.

The team partially resolved the issue in April when they prompted the spacecraft to begin returning engineering data, which includes information about the health and status of the spacecraft. On May 19, the mission team executed the second step of that repair process and beamed a command to the spacecraft to begin returning science data. Two of the four science instruments returned to their normal operating modes immediately. Two other instruments required some additional work, but now, all four are returning usable science data.  

The four instruments study plasma waves, magnetic fields, and particles. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are the only spacecraft to directly sample interstellar space, which is the region outside the heliosphere — the protective bubble of magnetic fields and solar wind created by the Sun.

While Voyager 1 is back to conducting science, additional minor work is needed to clean up the effects of the issue. Among other tasks, engineers will resynchronize timekeeping software in the spacecraft’s three onboard computers so they can execute commands at the right time. The team will also perform maintenance on the digital tape recorder, which records some data for the plasma wave instrument that is sent to Earth twice per year. (Most of the Voyagers’ science data is sent directly to Earth and not recorded.)

Voyager 1 is more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, and Voyager 2 is more than 12 billion miles (20 billion kilometers) from the planet. The probes will mark 47 years of operations later this year. They are NASA’s longest-running and most-distant spacecraft. Both spacecraft flew past Jupiter and Saturn, while Voyager 2 also flew past Uranus and Neptune.

News Media Contact

Calla Cofield Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 626-808-2469 [email protected]

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NASA’s most distant supercraft, Voyager 1 is back to normal operation

Nasa’s voyager 1 makes contact from interstellar space.

• by Web Desk
• June 17, 2024

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Voyager 1 has finally contacted earth from 24 billion kilometres distance, interstellar space.

According to Science Alert , Voyager 1 is the most distant spacecraft from Earth. After half a year of spewing gobbledegook, it is once again back on the deep space radio network.

NASA posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) on June 15, “We're back, baby! Our Voyager 1 spacecraft is conducting normal science operations for the first time since November 2023. All four instruments, which study plasma waves, magnetic fields, and particles, are returning usable science data."

The 46-year-old probe, for the first time in months, has shared that it is probing outside the influence of the Sun on the near-freezing borderlands of our Solar System.

Earlier in November 2023, the probe started sending random readouts that scientists could not understand.

Later, it was discovered that the issue was in a small corrupted chip in Voyage 1’s onboard memory chip, likely caused by old age or triggered by energetic particles in interstellar space.

The official account of Voyager 1 explained on X, “Kinda like when your power goes out, and you have to go around your whole house resetting all your electronics… That's basically what my team and I are doing now.”

However, now, after the restoration of contact with Voyager 1, it can once again send usable data to Earth.

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