In a recent breakthrough, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has begun sending usable engineering data back to Earth after engineers successfully worked around a damaged memory chip. The failure of the FDS memory chip made it impossible for engineers to transfer the code to a single location due to size constraints, so they had to break it down into sections and distribute them to different parts of the FDS.
Currently, Voyager 1 is over 15 billion miles away from Earth, and communication involves a significant delay of approximately 22.5 hours. On April 18, the packaging code responsible for the spacecraft’s engineering data was relocated, and this fix was confirmed on April 20.
Moving forward, the rest of the affected software will be relocated in the coming weeks, allowing for science data from the spacecraft to return. Dr. Garry Hunt, an original Voyager scientist, expressed his excitement about the news but noted that it would take time to resume scientific operations due to communication delays.
This achievement serves as a positive development for NASA amidst budget troubles and highlights the remarkable longevity and foresight of past missions with Voyager still functioning over 50 years after its launch in 1977.
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