Way back in 1977, only five years after the last Apollo mission that took human crew to the Moon, NASA sent two probes into space: Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Both of them have reached farther places in the Universe than most people ever thought possible using the world’s current technology. Voyager 1 even left the Solar System, while we can expect Voyager 2 to follow suit in the near future.
But when it comes to science in general and astronomy in particular, things rarely happen as we plan or want. This is also the case for Voyager 1, as NASA once again lost communication with the probe.
Voyager 1 can’t send data to Earth anymore
Thanks to space.com, we now know that NASA’s Voyager 1 space probe is currently unable to send any form of data back to Earth anymore.
It’s still worth keeping in mind that Voyager 1 can still receive commands from NASA despite the current problem. Two days ago, NASA announced in a blog post that Voyager 1’s flight data system (FDS) was not able to communicate anymore as expected. Engineers are currently working to get the technical problem fixed.
The space agency’s blog post was crystal clear:
Engineers are working to resolve an issue with one of Voyager 1’s three onboard computers, called the flight data system (FDS). The spacecraft is receiving and executing commands sent from Earth; however, the FDS is not communicating properly with one of the probe’s subsystems, called the telemetry modulation unit (TMU). As a result, no science or engineering data is being sent back to Earth.
However, according to a piece of information that we shared back in June, NASA’s two space probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, are running out of fuel and will kick the bucket in the near future.
