NASA’s Voyager 1 probe has been experiencing glitches since May 2022, sending nonsensical data back to Earth instead of scientific measurements.
Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory believe they have identified the cause – a problem with the memory hardware on the flight data system (FDS) onboard Voyager 1.
The FDS collects and combines data from Voyager’s instruments to send to Earth. But there has been trouble communicating between FDS and the telemetry modulation unit (TMU) which transmits the data.
After sending a command to prompt the FDS software, Voyager 1 sent back a full readout of its FDS memory. Comparing this to previous readouts revealed around 3% of the FDS memory had been corrupted.
Engineers think this memory chip failure was caused either by a particle strike or normal wear and tear over the 46+ years Voyager 1 has been operating since launch in 1977.
NASA hopes to resolve the issue by finding a way for the FDS to work around the corrupted memory and resume sending back scientific measurements from Voyager 1’s unprecedented journey through interstellar space.
Source: gizmodo
