NASA’s Voyager 1 space probe, which navigates interstellar space. For the first time normal scientific activities After a technical glitch in November.
Team The problem was partially resolved in April When the spacecraft was asked to begin transmitting engineering data, including information about the spacecraft’s status and health. On May 19, the mission team executed the second step of that repair process and sent a command to the spacecraft to transmit science data. Two of the four science instruments immediately returned to their normal operating modes. The other two instruments require more work, but for now, all four are yielding usable scientific data.
Four instruments are read Plasma waves, magnetic fields and particles. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are the only spacecraft They take samples directly from interstellar spaceMagnetic fields created by the Sun and the protective bubble of the solar wind, the region outside the Solar System, NASA reports.
As Voyager 1 returns to science mission, A A little extra work to clean up the effects of the problem. Among other tasks, engineers will resynchronize the timing software on the spacecraft’s three onboard computers so they can run commands on time. The group will also perform Digital Recorder Maintenance, recording some data for the plasma wave instrument sent to Earth twice a year. Most of Voyager’s science data was sent directly to Earth and not recorded.
Voyager 1 is More than 24 billion kilometers from EarthAnd Voyager 2 is More than 20,000 million kilometers from the planet. Studies are compliant 47 years of operations By the end of this year. They are NASA’s spacecraft that have been in operation the longest and have flown the longest. Both spacecraft They passed Jupiter and SaturnAt the same time Voyager 2 passed by Uranus and Neptune.
