NASA’s engineering team is investigating a mystery that takes place on the Voyager 1 spacecraft.
Voyager 1 is the most distant man-made object launched 44 years ago. It is currently operating on the edge of the solar system, flying through the “interstellar medium” outside the influence of the Sun.
However, scientists have found that the spacecraft successfully receives and executes commands from Earth – but readings from the Probe’s Articulation and Position Control (AACS) system do not reflect what is actually happening aboard Voyager 1.
The system maintains the ship’s orientation by keeping its antenna pointed directly at the Earth so that data can be sent from it to NASA. Although all indications suggest that AACS is operating normally, the telemetry data it returns appear to be randomly generated – it does not reflect the possible state the system may be in.
In addition, the problem did not trigger any damage protection system that could put Voyager in safe mode, and the signal was not attenuated – suggesting that the antenna is still in its normal position facing the Earth.
NASA says it will continue to monitor the situation, as invalid data may be produced by another system, but say it does not understand why this is happening or how long the problem could last. It takes approximately two days to reach Voyager with a message from Earth and receive a response from the ship.
“Such a mystery is kind of normal for the Voyager mission at this stage,” said Susanne Dodd, Voyager 1 and 2 project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
“The spacecraft are almost 45 years old, which is far beyond what the mission planned. We are also in interstellar space, a high-radiation environment in which no spacecraft has flown before. So there are some big challenges for the engineering team. But I think if there is a way to solve this problem with AACS, our team will find it. “
NASA is unlikely to find the source of the problem and instead have to issue software changes or use one of the ship’s backup systems – something that was done before 2017, when Voyager had to move from its main propulsion devices to secondary. due to signs of degradation.
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