NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, currently the most distant human-made object from Earth, has begun transmitting usable information back to ground control after months of sending gibberish. The agency made this announcement on Monday. After stopping sending understandable data in November 2023, controllers were still able to confirm that the spacecraft was still receiving their commands.
In March, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory discovered a single malfunctioning chip as the cause of the communication issues. They then developed a clever coding fix that worked within the limitations of the probe’s 46-year-old computer system. Now, Voyager 1 is providing valuable data on its engineering systems and plans to resume sending scientific data soon.
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 holds the distinction of being the first spacecraft from Earth to enter the interstellar medium in 2012. Currently located over 15 billion miles away from our planet, it takes approximately 22.5 hours for messages to reach the probe from Earth. Its twin spacecraft, Voyager 2, also exited the solar system in 2018.
Both Voyager probes carry “Golden Records,” which are designed to explain Earth’s story to potential extraterrestrial beings through a variety of encoded images, music and sounds of life on Earth. The content was selected by NASA with input from a committee led by renowned astronomer Carl Sagan and includes symbolic instructions for playing the record along with a map of our solar system and a piece of uranium serving as a radioactive clock. While their power banks are projected to be depleted around 2025, these iconic spacecraft will continue wandering through space in silence for potentially an unlimited amount of time
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