NASA faces communication blackout with Voyager 1 in deep space

The unmanned Voyager 1 space probe is currently on the outskirts of the Solar System, venturing into interstellar space. For several months, however, the probe has experienced difficulties in communicating with Earth, and NASA engineers have been unable to find an effective solution to this issue.

Voyager 1 is an American space probe that has travelled the furthest from Earth of all human-made objects. Some time ago, it crossed the heliopause, which is the boundary separating the domain of solar wind dominance, known as the heliosphere, from interstellar space. At present, the probe is about 14.9 billion miles from Earth, equivalent to a distance 163 times greater than that which separates the Earth from the Sun.

Since its launch from Earth in 1977, Voyager 1 has sent valuable scientific data to our planet for many years. While operational issues were not uncommon, efforts were always made to resolve them. However, toward the end of 2023, a new problem emerged with the data transmitted by radio from the probe to Earth. Instead of sending scientific data to the flight control center in binary form (a string of zeros and ones), the probe began to repeat the same pattern of zeros and ones continuously, suggesting it might have "frozen".

The analysis of the problem indicated that it is related to three onboard computers from the flight data system (FDS). The probe receives and executes commands from Earth correctly, but the FDS does not communicate effectively with another subsystem, the telemetry modulation unit (TMU).

The FDS has many responsibilities, including collecting data from scientific instruments and about the state of the probe. It combines this information into packets and transmits it to Earth via the TMU system.

Attempts to resolve the problem have been made, including ordering the probe to reset the computer, but unfortunately, these efforts have not led to the expected results. Several months after the malfunction surfaced, the issue remains unresolved. Since then, no scientific data have been received from Voyager 1. Efforts to return the probe to proper operation are complicated by the fact that any commands from Earth take more than 22 hours to reach Voyager 1.

The probe is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator based on plutonium, and in a few years, it will likely become necessary to turn off all its scientific instruments. This may happen around 2025. Meanwhile, it should remain within the reach of the antennas of the Deep Space Network, which NASA uses to communicate with its space probes, until around 2036.

If Voyager 1 continues on its journey, it may reach the hypothetical Oort Cloud in a few hundred years. It is not aimed at any specific star, but it is predicted that in the year 40272 (or in 38,000 years), the probe will pass at a distance of about 1.7 light-years from the star AC+79 3888 in the constellation of Ursa Minor.