Something's Seriously Wrong With Voyager 1 Probe 23 Billion km Away

Voyager 1 is in trouble. The engineering team with NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is trying to solve a mystery: readouts from the probe’s attitude articulation and control system (AACS) don’t reflect what’s actually happening onboard.

The AACS controls the 45-year-old spacecraft’s orientation. Among other tasks, it keeps Voyager 1’s high-gain antenna pointed precisely at Earth, enabling it to send data home. All signs suggest the AACS is still working, but the telemetry data it’s returning is invalid. For instance, the data may appear to be randomly generated or does not reflect any possible state the AACS could be in.

The issue hasn’t triggered any onboard fault protection systems, which are designed to put the spacecraft into “safe mode” – a state where only essential operations are carried out, giving engineers time to diagnose an issue. Voyager 1’s signal hasn’t weakened, either, which suggests the high-gain antenna remains in its prescribed orientation with Earth.

While the engineers continue to work at solving the mystery that Voyager 1 has presented them, the mission’s scientists will continue to make the most of the data coming down from the spacecraft’s unique vantage point.

[TheSecretsoftheUniverse]

Besides the two Voyager probes, what other spacecraft has contributed immensely to our understanding of the universe? Let's see what you choose :)

[doc-holliday-]

Crazy that its been flying for 45 years and its still not even 1 light day away. Truly makes you appreciate how vast our universe is.

[aircolorado]

I understand NASA is confused. But I have to ask has anyone there seriously considered that the data being returned may not be wrong or “random”. They’re basing their expectations as to what should be expected based upon conjecture, theory, and models - however, we’ve never had a probe out of the sun’s “bubble”, so at least consider the possibility that some very real and strange things could be happening around the probe that simply don’t fit nicely into their models and expectations. Before they permanently switch off something or do something irreversible based on the belief that odd data that doesn’t fit their model must mean a malfunction, look for reasons as to how the data may be completely accurate and our concepts as to what’s out there might be completely wrong. Not saying something isn’t broken in the probe, just saying examine possibilities that physics outside the heliosphere might just be radically different from what’s expected. Kinda the reason for the expedition in the first place.

[steveoh]

What an engineering marvel the Voyager program is, the fact that it is way out there and still transmitting is remarkable in itself.

[johns]

the thrusters still worked after 37 years, having not been used in 37 years.

Someone did their engineering well.

[nicomeier]

So after flying in a total vacuum in extremely low temperatures for 45 years, now entering a high radiation zone it has developed a problem?
Hats off to the designers and engineers!

[starfox]

I never felt sad for a robot, but I did for this robot. Godspeed Voyager

[HotShot]

I do hope that one day if we ever achieve interstellar travel capabilities, and if NASA is still around in some regard, that they may make a new mission to go out and retrieve the voyagers. As impossible of a task as that sounds, and we're talking possibly centuries from now, going out there and finding the Voyagers and bringing them back home would be an amazing milestone to show how far technology has advanced since those days. It would definitely be a priceless museum piece by that point. Especially if all the instruments can still function after power is restored to it.

[rileysamuel]

Isn’t it crazy how a piece of technology made 45 years ago can receive and execute commands as well as still be in “range”?

[zachbraxton]

I can't help but feel a connection to Voyager 1, it's older than I am, I've heard about its progress my entire life. It was humanities first ever little space robot buddy. It will be a sad shame when we finally lose contact with it forever, it deserves a prominent place in human history to never be forgotten.

[marcuscarana]

It's decades old, and has been exposed to radiation for such a long time and perhaps been bombarded with micro meteorites. It's amazing it's still "alive" but it probably has damaged, irreparable circuits by now. It's done its job and already gave humanity so much valuable data about our universe.

[Sizifus]

It's really impressive how this machine that's almost 50 years old is still operating while moving in such a hostile environment and what's also super impressive is how even being so far away it can pin point Earth for communications.

[JamiePryke]

Losing voyager 1 would be like giving up your favourite childhood toy as you grew up.

It's possibly obsolete now, our needs and wants have changed and developed. But there's something cruelly nostalgic about it :'(

[Stopsignv]

It's amazing to me that we can send an object 14.4 billion miles away and still get signals. But my Spectrum loses signal when we have rain.

[tgchism]

In some ways these two spacecrafts approaching the end of their missions is going to be like loosing life long friends! I've been following the missions since I was 14 years old when they were launched! However, they will still be out there traveling silently after we are all long gone! A testament to us all!

[zudemaster]

As strange as it might seem I kind of feel sad when I think about spacecraft such as the Voyagers and how far away from home they are, and the fact they can never return and probably will never be found by anyone/anything. Just emptyness and loneliness and with each passing moment they are further away.

[thegamingpigeon]

The ironic thing with the Voyager spacecrafts as we near our eternal goodbye with them: they will very likely outlive us, not just here and now but as a species. Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneers 10 and 11, New Horizons and whatever crafts we send to the deep reaches of our solar system are all bound to exit (or have already left) our solar system, continuing on their own for god knows how long, drifting through the Milky Way. That's the reason they were fitted with the golden records. They're likely going to be all that's left of us someday. Our sole message to tell the universe that we were here.

[lamchuanzheng]

can we all appreciate the cameraman standing by and waiting in the middle of space to shoot the satellite fly by?!

[MrMrutube]

Mad to think something can travel for 14 billion miles in the same direction and not hit something... that kinda boggles your mind to just how big the universe might be.. I don't think the human brain can actually vision something so big... mental.

[wertbe]

The fact that something built in the 70s has the capability of receiving and transmitting data from 23+ billion km away in itself is astonishing to me.


And yet I get poor internet connection if I'm more than 30 feet away from my router.