NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, which has been journeying by way of house for over 47 years, not too long ago skilled a short interruption in communication. On October 24, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California regained contact with Voyager 1. The interruption was attributable to a shutdown of one in every of its transmitters, probably triggered by the spacecraft’s fault safety system, which powers down sure methods when energy utilization is simply too excessive. This incident has raised new challenges for NASA, as speaking with a spacecraft over 15 billion miles away presents distinctive technical difficulties.
Fault Safety System Triggers Shutdown
Engineers recognized the fault safety system because the possible trigger behind the transmitter shutdown. This technique conserves power by turning off non-essential tools, which ensures the spacecraft can proceed its mission regardless of restricted energy reserves. On October 16, JPL engineers despatched a command to activate a heater on Voyager 1. Nonetheless, as a substitute of responding as anticipated, the command appeared to overload the system. By October 18, alerts from Voyager 1 had pale, indicating a problem had occurred.
Communication Restored however Challenges Persist
After a sequence of makes an attempt, the workforce found that Voyager 1’s fault safety system had switched the spacecraft to a second, lower-power transmitter. The spacecraft’s normal communication system, often called the X-band, had been disabled, inflicting Voyager to modify to an S-band transmitter. The S-band transmitter, which had not been used since 1981, operates at a unique frequency and transmits a weaker sign. This swap sophisticated the reconnection efforts, however engineers on the Deep House Community managed to find Voyager’s faint S-band sign on October 19.
NASA’s Plan to Stabilise Voyager 1
NASA engineers have opted to keep away from switching again to the X-band transmitter till they will decide what activated the fault safety system. On October 22, they confirmed that the S-band is secure and are actually analysing information to determine the basis trigger. With over 47 years of service, each Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 stay the one probes working in interstellar house. Their superior age presents technical challenges, however NASA’s workforce stays dedicated to sustaining contact with these historic spacecraft as they proceed their journey by way of the cosmos.
