-
It took NASA a week to decipher it, but the probe finally responded with a clear data stream
-
Studying this message is an opportunity to understand the problem of the legendary probe
Let's not consider the dead yet Voyager 1. The legendary space probe, which has been sending meaningless data since November 2023, has responded to NASA's command with its first clear message in four months.
The Voyager 1 space probe, launched in 1977, is 24 billion kilometers from Earth, farther than any other spacecraft has ever traveled. Despite the distance, it continued to send us extremely valuable data from interstellar space until one of its subsystems, called the Flight Data System (FDS), began to fail.
Since then, Voyager 1 has sent us a message Fixed indication of stale data That pushes NASA upside down. The agency initially tried to restart the investigation, as we would all do, but was unsuccessful. He kept trying more and more complex solutions to reconnect, but the result was the same. As of March 3, the mission team saw that the probe responded with a different data stream.
Although the signal was not in the format Voyager used when FDS was working properly, a NASA Deep Space Network engineer was able to decode it and And I discovered that it contains a readable read For all subsystem memory.
FDS memory includes its source code (instructions on what to do), variables or values used in the code that can change depending on the state of the spacecraft, and scientific or engineering data from its instruments.
After this brief moment of clarity, the probe returned to its usual timeline of meaningless data, but NASA saw a glimmer of hope. The mission team will be able to compare this reading to the reading sent by Voyager before the problem arose Look for inconsistencies in the code Or variables. Hopefully, engineers will find the source of the problem and can work on a more accurate solution.
Voyager 1 is so far away that its signal, which travels at the speed of light, takes 22.5 hours to reach Earth. His message of March 3 was in response to an order sent by NASA on March 1, the contents of which were not deciphered until March 10.
Image | a pot
In Chataka | Why would Voyager receive more light than a full moon night if it was 20 billion kilometers from the Sun?
“Creator. Troublemaker. Hardcore alcohol lover. Web evangelist. Extreme pop culture practitioner. Devoted zombie scholar. Avid introvert.”