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3 months ago
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NASA is not just exploring Mars and the moons of Jupiter – it is also searching for life in other corners of the universe. The Voyager 1 has helped through this process. Initially built to study the biggest planet in our solar system, the probe launched in 1977 eventually moved to new horizons – becoming the farthest human-made object and has been traveling in interstellar space since 2012. It is still operating after almost 50 years in space, but it recently showed that time is unbeatable.
The mission that never ended
The mission was never meant to last 48 years. Originally designed to study the gas giants, the probe was launched during the Cold War era, when space exploration was still finding its footing. Decades later, it has crossed the boundary of our solar system, moving through regions no other human-made object has reached. Yet, even as it drifts farther, its instruments remain active.
Recently, something unexpected happened. Signals from the distant probe changed—data began arriving in strange, indecipherable patterns. Scientists spent months trying to understand what was happening until a breakthrough finally allowed them to decode the unreadable transmissions.
NASA’s Voyager 1 had a storage problem
NASA engineers have identified the cause of the communication breakdown between Earth and Voyager 1. A small section of corrupted memory in one of the spacecraft’s computers was behind the issue.
The glitch, found in Voyager 1’s flight data subsystem (FDS), stopped the spacecraft from sending readable data back to Earth. This subsystem is responsible for preparing the probe’s science and engineering data before it’s transmitted back to mission control.
The problem began to surface when engineers sent a command in March 2024, asking the ally in the cosmos to send a full memory readout. That’s when they discovered that part of the memory was damaged. The probe, launched in 1977, became the first human-made object to enter interstellar space in 2012. Voyager 2 followed in 2018 and continues to operate normally.
In November 2023, Voyager 1’s signals stopped making sense. The spacecraft was still connected to Earth, but the data it sent was scrambled and unreadable. NASA believes a single chip inside the FDS failed, possibly due to damage from space radiation or simply wear and tear after 48 years in space.
NASA fixed the problem
In April 2025, NASA solved the issue from 15 billion miles away. Since the damaged chip couldn’t be repaired, engineers shifted the affected software code to a different part of the memory system.
Because the code was too large to fit in a single location, they split it into sections and stored them across different memory areas. The sections were then adjusted to work together, restoring Voyager 1’s ability to send clear data back to Earth after five months of silence.
Engineers tested their solution by moving the software code responsible for sending data about the spacecraft itself. The fix worked—it responded with clear, readable data about its current status.
It took days for scientists to have a response from the probe
But every step in the process took time. The probe is traveling at about 38,000 mph and sits so far from Earth that each radio signal takes 22.5 hours to reach the spacecraft, with another 22.5 hours needed for its reply to arrive back on Earth.
Next, engineers plan to reposition and synchronize the remaining sections of the code. Once that’s done, it should be able to resume sending clear scientific data about its findings as it continues its journey farther from Earth. This can be considered an upgrade, but with machinery this old, sometimes the best thing to do is leave it be – otherwise it can try to make it better and ruin it. For this reason, when the Voyager 1 had another problem, this could mean it’s time to retire.
