Engineers still working to resolve data issue on NASA's longest-operating spacecraft

NASA engineers are still working to fix a glitch on Voyager 1 that is preventing the spacecraft from sending science or engineering data back to Earth. The issue was first identified in December 2023 and the resolution process is time-consuming because of the spacecraft's incredible distance from Earth.

According to the agency, commands from mission controllers on Earth take 22.5 hours to reach Voyager 1, which is now in interstellar space more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth. The team has to wait 45 hours to get a response from the probe and determine whether a command had the intended outcome.

A Voyager update: Engineers are still working to resolve a data issue on Voyager 1. We can talk to the spacecraft, and it can hear us, but it's a slow process given the spacecraft's incredible distance from Earth. We’ll keep you informed on its status. 🤞 pic.twitter.com/qSxG0au1Nn

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) February 6, 2024

Back in December NASA revealed that one of Voyager 1's three onboard computers, called the flight data system (FDS), is not communicating properly with one of the probe's subsystems, called the telemetry modulation unit (TMU). As a result, no data is being sent back to Earth. The team tried to restart the system and return it to the state it was in before the issue began, but the spacecraft failed to return usable data.

Launched in 1977, the spacecraft and its twin, Voyager 2, are the two longest-operating spacecraft in history. As of January 2024, Voyager 1 was about 136 AU (15 billion miles, or 20 billion kilometers) from Earth, the farthest object created by humans.