:quality(85)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/NP5NEZXMZFGNLBHNEQJHPJVMKM.jpg "NASA regained contact with Voyager 1, the farthest spacecraft from Earth")
2024-04-23 13:17:00
The space probe Voyager 1following five months of silence in terms of comprehensible data, managed to re-establish contact with Tierrasends important information for engineers from NASA come up with a creative solution to solve a communication problem. This technical feat was achieved despite the enormous distance to more than 24 billion kilometers that separates the probe from our planet, underscoring the ingenuity and tenacity of the mission team i Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
In accordance CNNthe first consistent data set on the state and health of technical systems i Voyager 1 was received on April 20, marking a significant milestone following a five-month hiatus in receiving useful data.
The Voyager 1which was launched in 1977 on a mission originally planned for five years, has not only exceeded all expectations in terms of longevity, but has also become mankind’s longest and oldest operational spacecraft, plunging into the unknown cosmic territory beyond our solar system.
“Today was a great day for Voyager 1,” declared Linda SpilkerVoyager Project Scientist at JPLand reveals the team’s great commitment to its interstellar exploration mission.
Fox weather noted that the last challenge for Voyager 1 began in November 2023, when its flight data system telemetry modulation device began emitting a repetitive, unreadable code pattern, compromising the transmission of vital scientific and technical data to Tierra.
The unit is responsible for gathering information from the ship’s scientific instruments and packaging it with technical data that reflects its current state of health. This communication problem, unparalleled in its specificity, required an unparalleled solution.
The strategy of JPL from NASA involved a detailed diagnostic and remediation effort, culminating in the dispatch of a “sting” on March 1 in an attempt to get the flight computer system to run various software sequences to isolate the cause of the anomaly.
It is “sting”or stimulus, allowed engineers to spot abnormal activity that stood out among the inconsistent data, leading to the discovery of corrupted memory affecting 3% of the flight computer system.
“We’ll never know for sure what’s going to happen to the Voyagers, but I’m constantly amazed when they just keep going,” he said. Suzanne DoddVoyager project manager, in a statement.
As explained BBC, the diagnosis revealed that a single chip, responsible for storing part of the system’s software code, had failed, possibly due to wear or the impact of an energetic particle from space. Faced with the impossibility of a physical repair, it was decided to move the affected code to other areas of system memory.
This thorough reconfiguration process involved not only moving the code, but also making adjustments to ensure it worked together and updating any references to the code’s location in the flight computer system’s memory.
The move proved successful when on April 20, following sending the radio signal to change the code and an anxious 45-hour wait, the team received readable technical data from Voyager 1which proves the team’s concrete ability to overcome technical challenges on an interplanetary scale.
With the spacecraft now in a satisfactory state of health and the team preparing to relocate other affected parts of the system software, the return of science data is expected in the coming weeks, continuing the historic mission of collecting and transmitting invaluable information from interstellar space.
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