NASA received a communication signal from a spacecraft 24 billion kilometers away

After a long period of communication problems with Voyager 1, NASA for the first time received a meaningful signal from a spacecraft flying in interstellar space.

After 4 tense months, NASA finally received a readable signal from the Voyager spacecraft , Live Science reported on March 15. Since November 2023, the nearly 50-year-old spacecraft has had problems with the onboard computer. Although Voyager 1, one of NASA's longest space missions, regularly sent radio signals back to Earth, the signals did not contain any useful data, leaving scientists confused.

Simulate the Voyager spacecraft flying in space. (Photo: NASA).

Now, in response to a command prompt sent from Earth on March 1, NASA received a new signal from the Voyager 1 spacecraft that engineers were able to decode. Scientists on the mission hope this information can help them explain the spacecraft's recent communication problems.

"The source of the problem appears to lie in one of the three onboard computers, the flight data subsystem (FDS) responsible for packaging scientific and technical data before sending it back to Earth using the measurement modulator. far" , NASA said.

On March 1, in an effort to find a solution to Voyager 1's computer problem, NASA transmitted commands to the FDS on the spacecraft, instructing the device to use various sequences in the software package, helping to scan the spacecraft. Effective control of potentially erroneous data. Voyager 1 is more than 24 billion km from Earth. This means any radio signal sent from Earth takes 22.5 hours to reach the spacecraft, and any response takes the same amount of time for an antenna on Earth to pick up.

On March 3, NASA detected activity from a part of the FDS that was different from the unreadable data stream they had previously obtained. Four days later, engineers began the task of decoding this signal. On March 10, the team discovered a signal containing information about the entire FDS memory, including instructions on what the FDS needed to do, encrypted values ​​that could change according to orders from NASA or the spacecraft's status. cylinder, downloadable scientific and technical data.

Voyager 1 flew farther from Earth than any other man-made object . The spacecraft launched in 1977, a few weeks after Voyager 2, its twin spacecraft. The mission's initial goal was to explore Jupiter and Saturn. However, after nearly five decades and countless discoveries, the mission continues to fly beyond the boundaries of the Solar System.

Now, NASA scientists will compare the new information with data before the problem arose, looking for coding discrepancies and changes that could reveal the source of the problem. However, NASA emphasized that they need time to determine whether the information obtained from the new signal can be used to solve the long-term communication problem of Voyager 1.