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| NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft resumed normal science operations by sending usable engineering data |
NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has resumed normal science operations after experiencing issues at the end of 2023. The spacecraft's four remaining operational instruments are now sending usable data back to Earth, according to NASA. Engineers still need to resynchronize the timekeeping software of Voyager 1's three onboard computers to ensure commands are executed correctly. They will also perform maintenance on the digital tape recorder, which stores data from the plasma instrument for a biannual downlink to Earth.
The problems with Voyager 1 began in November 2023 when it stopped transmitting usable data, instead sending a repeating pattern of ones and zeroes. NASA identified the issue as being with the Flight Data System (FDS) and sent a command in March, referred to as a "poke," to prompt the FDS to try different software sequences. This resulted in a complete memory dump, allowing engineers to locate the corruption, which was caused by a malfunctioning chip. They then developed a software update to work around the faulty hardware.
By late April, usable engineering data started coming in, and by May, commands were sent to restore the flow of science data. The plasma wave subsystem and magnetometer instrument began transmitting data immediately, while the cosmic ray subsystem and low-energy charged particle instrument required additional adjustments but are now operational. The success of this effort is notable, given that it takes 22.5 hours for a command to reach Voyager 1 and another 22.5 hours to receive a response.
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