Going through one impediment after one other, the operators of NASA’s Voyager 1 probe proceed to search out artistic options to maintain the farthest artifical object from Earth transmitting radio communications.
Launched in 1977, it’s at present 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, and is now properly past the heliosphere, the bubble of particles emitted by the Solar that extends past Pluto and out into interstellar area.
Not too long ago, a days-long communication blackout was triggered after a radio command despatched by Earth to activate the probe’s heaters. For some motive, the heating command, which is used to quickly undo injury sustained by radiation, activated a failsafe that immediately shuts off all non-essential capabilities to preserve energy.
A type of capabilities was the extra high-powered radio transmitter known as the X-band, which permits for the probe to ship massive packages of science knowledge again to Earth. Such messages take 23 hours to reach, however in comparison with the S-band, the secondary radio transmitter that makes use of a distinct frequency, it’s by far the extra highly effective.
The S-band hasn’t been used since 1981—there hasn’t actually been a necessity, because it isn’t highly effective sufficient to ship again telemetry (flight standing and diagnostics) or the information collected by the probe’s monitoring devices.
“The S-band sign is just too weak to make use of long-term,” stated Bruce Waggoner, the Voyager mission assurance supervisor. “To date, the group has not been ready to make use of it to get telemetry, not to mention science knowledge. However it permits us to not less than ship instructions and ensure the spacecraft remains to be pointed at Earth.”
The engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, consider that the failsafe diminished the efficiency of the X-band frequencies, and certain sufficient, had been capable of finding it faintly among the many indicators obtained by the Deep House Community, a collection of satellite tv for pc dishes that enable NASA to speak with its autonomous spacecraft all around the photo voltaic system.
Then, on October nineteenth, the X-band sign ended altogether.
The group at JPL doesn’t wish to command the probe to activate the X-band till they’re certain there’s no threat of draining an excessive amount of energy too rapidly. As an alternative, they had been ready to make use of the S-band frequency three days later to verify the probe was nonetheless alive, and simply conserving energy.
If they may get the X-band transmitter working once more, it will enable them to obtain telemetry knowledge containing info on what occurred. Because the probe continues to float additional into interstellar area, there’s a really actual likelihood one other failsafe occasion may very well be triggered, shutting the X-band down once more.
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GNN reported that in March 2024, JPL managed to hone in on a difficulty that was stopping two-way communication with the probe for months.
After diagnosing and fixing this situation by dividing corrupted pc code into brief sections and storing them elsewhere on the probe’s flight knowledge subsystem earlier than making certain the onboard pc might discover them once more, JPL as soon as once more issued instructions to restart sending scientific knowledge on Might nineteenth, 2024.
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All 4 devices had been ultimately restarted. They collect knowledge on plasma waves, magnetic fields, and particles past the photo voltaic system.
“We by no means know for certain what’s going to occur with the Voyagers, but it surely always amazes me once they simply hold going,” Suzanne Dodd, Voyager’s challenge supervisor, advised CNN in April.
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