Engineers fix problem that caused data to arrive garbled from Voyager-1
By switching computers on Voyager-1 — now in interstellar space and having recently celebrated its 45th anniversary since launch — engineers were able to prevent data from coming back garbled from the spacecraft.
Earlier this year, the probe’s attitude articulation and control system (AACS), which keeps Voyager 1’s antenna pointed at Earth, began sending garbled information about its health and activities to mission controllers, despite operating normally. The rest of the probe also appeared healthy as it continued to gather and return science data.
The team has since located the source of the garbled information: The AACS had started sending the telemetry data through an onboard computer known to have stopped working years ago, and the computer corrupted the information.
Suzanne Dodd, Voyager’s project manager, said that when they suspected this was the issue, they opted to try a low-risk solution: commanding the AACS to resume sending the data to the right computer.
The switch worked. The mystery now is figuring out why the AACS started using that long-decommissioned computer, which could indicate another computer or software issue elsewhere in the spacecraft.
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By switching computers on Voyager-1 — now in interstellar space and having recently celebrated its 45th anniversary since launch — engineers were able to prevent data from coming back garbled from the spacecraft.
Earlier this year, the probe’s attitude articulation and control system (AACS), which keeps Voyager 1’s antenna pointed at Earth, began sending garbled information about its health and activities to mission controllers, despite operating normally. The rest of the probe also appeared healthy as it continued to gather and return science data.
The team has since located the source of the garbled information: The AACS had started sending the telemetry data through an onboard computer known to have stopped working years ago, and the computer corrupted the information.
Suzanne Dodd, Voyager’s project manager, said that when they suspected this was the issue, they opted to try a low-risk solution: commanding the AACS to resume sending the data to the right computer.
The switch worked. The mystery now is figuring out why the AACS started using that long-decommissioned computer, which could indicate another computer or software issue elsewhere in the spacecraft.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
This good but it will be a sad day when it goes all quiet permanently.
“Interstellar space” — not. While the Voyager probe(s) have encountered the interstellar medium (having traveled beyond the sun’s “heliopause” bubble following the sun through space), they are still very much part of the (outer) solar system. For instance, it’ll be some 300 years before the two Voyagers arrive at the inner “edge” of the sun’s circling Oort Cloud of comets — and 30,000 more years before they pass completely through it. Then they will have finally departed the solar system for “interstellar space.”
Not to be picky but IIRC Voyager 2 launched on August 20, 1977 and Voyager 1 launched September 5, 1977.
“pzatchok: “…it will be a sad day when it goes all quiet permanently.”
A quirk of human nature is to elevate the stature of inanimate objects over those of us who inevitably also will pass.
Neither you nor me will be so remembered.
8^D
One good bot on the internet and I could be robo calling all my relatives every year on my birthday just to remind them.
I might not live on but I will never be forgotten!!!!!
A cheap AI by them will make those calls really creepy.