Voyager-1 has computer issues
According to the Voyager-1 science team, the probe has developed a problem with one of its three onboard computers, called the flight data system (FDS), that is preventing it from sending back useable data.
Among other things, the FDS is designed to collect data from the science instruments as well as engineering data about the health and status of the spacecraft. It then combines that information into a single data “package” to be sent back to Earth by the TMU. The data is in the form of ones and zeros, or binary code. Varying combinations of the two numbers are the basis of all computer language.
Recently, the TMU began transmitting a repeating pattern of ones and zeros as if it were “stuck.” After ruling out other possibilities, the Voyager team determined that the source of the issue is the FDS. This past weekend the team tried to restart the FDS and return it to the state it was in before the issue began, but the spacecraft still isn’t returning useable data.
Engineers are trouble-shooting the problem, and expect it will take several weeks at best to identify and then fix the issue. The 22-hour travel time for communications to reach the spacecraft, now beyond the edge of the solar system more than 15 billion miles away, means that it will at minimum take about two days to find out if a transmitted fix works.
As the spacecraft was launched in 1977, most of the engineers now working on it were not even born then, and must deal with a technology that was designed before personal computers, no less smart phones, even existed. Like the entire 1960s space race, the two Voyager craft now beyond the solar system were built by engineers using slide rules.
Voyager-2 also had problems in August that engineers were able to fix, so the prognosis here is not bad.
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According to the Voyager-1 science team, the probe has developed a problem with one of its three onboard computers, called the flight data system (FDS), that is preventing it from sending back useable data.
Among other things, the FDS is designed to collect data from the science instruments as well as engineering data about the health and status of the spacecraft. It then combines that information into a single data “package” to be sent back to Earth by the TMU. The data is in the form of ones and zeros, or binary code. Varying combinations of the two numbers are the basis of all computer language.
Recently, the TMU began transmitting a repeating pattern of ones and zeros as if it were “stuck.” After ruling out other possibilities, the Voyager team determined that the source of the issue is the FDS. This past weekend the team tried to restart the FDS and return it to the state it was in before the issue began, but the spacecraft still isn’t returning useable data.
Engineers are trouble-shooting the problem, and expect it will take several weeks at best to identify and then fix the issue. The 22-hour travel time for communications to reach the spacecraft, now beyond the edge of the solar system more than 15 billion miles away, means that it will at minimum take about two days to find out if a transmitted fix works.
As the spacecraft was launched in 1977, most of the engineers now working on it were not even born then, and must deal with a technology that was designed before personal computers, no less smart phones, even existed. Like the entire 1960s space race, the two Voyager craft now beyond the solar system were built by engineers using slide rules.
Voyager-2 also had problems in August that engineers were able to fix, so the prognosis here is not bad.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
This is where both NASA and JPL have dropped the ball. They should have launched a Voyager-type mission every decade! Think of how much better each new generation of probe would be, and the lessons we could learn from the old probes. This NASA practice of “one-and-done” isn‘t doing us any favors. Same with Hubble. Imagine 6 or 8 telescopes in orbit, each better than the last. Once you build the prototype, the production models should be much cheaper.
Voyager 1 and Voyager II, hosting the two oldest continuously operating computers man has ever made, will run out of their plutonium generated electricity sometime in 2025. What a remarkable achievement it was to get these two magnificent collections of spare parts, hopes and dreams built and launched and on a shoestring budget. That they’ve inspired generations of the world’s children to become astronomers, scientists and engineers is a given. Mission Accomplished was reached years ago. It’s been all icing on the cake since then. God speed, V’ger.
David M. Cook–
Yes, totally like the every-decade, thing’.
Tangentially related
“Prepping the Perseverance Power Source”
Idaho National Lab (June 2020)
https://youtu.be/K79IwXzGBKk
2:54
I believe the Voyager computers have the longest uninterrupted uptime of any computer. An impressive feat.
They are not running Microsoft. So of course they are solid and running fine.
All kidding aside I love these craft. Simple (for now) and robust (for then). They do their job and nothing more.
Any extra science out of them comes from Earth observations and new interpretations of their data.