An artist’s concept shows the Voyager spacecraft traveling through space against a field of stars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
An issue affecting data from
Suzanne Dodd, Voyager’s project manager, said that when they suspected this was the issue, they decided to try a simple, low-risk solution: commanding the AACS to resume sending the data to the right computer.
Voyager’s high-gain antenna, seen at the center of this illustration of the NASA spacecraft, is one component controlled by the attitude articulation and control system (AACS). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Engineers don’t yet know why the AACS started routing telemetry data to the incorrect computer. They think it likely received a faulty command generated by another onboard computer. If that’s indeed the case, it would indicate there is still an issue somewhere else on the spacecraft. The team will continue searching for that underlying issue, but they don’t think it is a threat to the long-term health of Voyager 1.
“We’re happy to have the telemetry back,” said Dodd. “We’ll do a full memory readout of the AACS and look at everything it’s been doing. That will help us try to diagnose the problem that caused the telemetry issue in the first place. So we’re cautiously optimistic, but we still have more investigating to do.”
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have been exploring our solar system for 45 years. Both spacecraft are now in interstellar space, the region outside the heliopause, or the bubble of energetic particles and magnetic fields from the Sun.
More About the Mission
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