NASA’s Voyager 1 continues its journey beyond our solar system, 45 years after it was launched. But now the veteran spacecraft is sending back strange data, puzzling its engineers.
NASA said Wednesday that while the spacecraft is still operating properly, readings from its articulation and control system – AACS for short – do not appear to match the spacecraft’s movements and orientation, suggesting the spacecraft is confused about its location in space.
AACS is essential for Voyager to send NASA data on the surrounding interstellar environment, as it keeps the ship’s antenna aimed precisely at our planet.
“Such a mystery is something normal for the Voyager mission at this stage,” said Susanne Dodd, Voyager 1 and 2 Project Manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“Both spacecraft are almost 45 years old, which is far beyond what the mission planned.
Engineer working on a Voyager high-gain dish-shaped antenna, July 9, 1976 (NASA / JPL-Caltech)
NASA has said that the twin of Voyager 1, the Voyager 2 probe, is behaving normally.
Launched in 1977 to explore the outer planets of our solar system, Voyager 1 has remained in operation long-awaited and continues to send information about its travels back to Earth. The original spacecraft left our solar system and entered interstellar space in 2012. It is now 14.5 billion miles from Earth, making it the most distant man-made object.
NASA said that according to what its engineers can say, AACS on Voyager 1 sends randomly generated data that does not “reflect what is actually happening on board.”
But even if the system data suggests otherwise, the spacecraft’s antenna appears to be properly aligned – it receives and executes commands from NASA and sends data back to Earth. It says that so far the problem with the system has not triggered the aging spacecraft to go into “safe mode”, during which it performs only basic operations.
“Until the nature of the problem is better understood, the team cannot predict whether this could affect how long the spacecraft can collect and transmit scientific data,” NASA said.
Dodd and her team hope to find out what makes the robot’s messenger send unnecessary data.
“There are some big challenges for the engineering team,” Dodd said.
Basic: It takes 20 hours and 33 minutes to reach the current interstellar location of Voyager, so the two-way trip message between the space agency and Voyager takes two days.
“But I think if there’s a way to solve this problem with AACS, our team will find it,” Dodd added.
This article was originally published by Business Insider.
More from Business Insider:
Add Comment