NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 have resumed sending science data after technical issues in interstellar space.
The Voyager missions have provided valuable insights into our solar system and continue to contribute to our understanding of interstellar space.
Voyager 1 experienced a computer problem in November 2023, preventing it from returning data. Engineering data began to be received in April, and science data started flowing from two instruments in May.
Voyager 2 also experienced a technical issue but was able to resume normal operations more quickly. Both spacecraft are now drifting through interstellar space.
NASA's Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, have resumed sending science data after encountering technical issues. Both spacecraft entered interstellar space in the late 1990s and have been collecting valuable information about plasma waves, magnetic fields, and particles in this region.
Voyager 1 experienced a computer problem in November 2023 that prevented it from returning data. Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) worked to resolve the issue by sending commands to the spacecraft to begin returning engineering data, which includes information about the health and status of Voyager 1. In April, usable engineering data began to be received, and in May, science data started flowing from two of Voyager 1's instruments: plasma waves and magnetometer.
Voyager 2 also experienced a technical issue but was able to resume normal operations more quickly than its twin. Both spacecraft are now drifting through interstellar space, studying the environment outside the heliosphere, which is the protective bubble of magnetic fields and solar wind created by the Sun.
The Voyager missions have provided invaluable insights into our solar system and continue to contribute to our understanding of interstellar space. NASA's commitment to maintaining these historic spacecraft demonstrates its dedication to scientific exploration and discovery.
A 'tiger team' of engineers traced the problem to a corrupted memory chip and rewrote software to avoid using it.
The spacecraft's computer was successfully updated for the first time in its 45-year history, allowing it to operate for up to another decade.
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The article contains some instances of appeals to authority and inflammatory rhetoric, but no formal or dichotomous fallacies are present. The author quotes Linda Spilker extensively and attributes her statements as facts. This is an appeal to authority as the reader is expected to trust Spilker's expertise in the field. However, this does not necessarily mean that the information she provides is incorrect or misleading, it simply means that the author relies on her authority to convey information. The article also contains some inflammatory language such as 'garbled data' and 'computer malfunction', but these are descriptive terms used to convey the severity of the situation and do not constitute a fallacy. The overall tone of the article is informative and factual, with no clear attempts to deceive or manipulate the reader.
]An illustration of one of the twin Voyager spacecraft now in interstellar space. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech[
WASHINGTON
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced June 13 that the four instruments on the spacecraft, which measure plasma waves, magnetic fields and particles in interstellar space, have started returning data again.
The tiger team was able to reprogram and relocate that code, first for the engineering portion of the data modes coming from the spacecraft.
With a little bit of luck, it might be possible to continue the Voyager spacecraft taking data out to the 2030s.
