NASA's 47-year-old Voyager 1 spacecraft recently made contact with Earth after a brief stop using a radio transmitter that has not been used since 1981. NASA engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California have restored contact with Earth. spacecraft on October 24.
The spacecraft, which is located in interstellar space more than 15 billion miles away, experienced a brief interruption in communications on October 16 due to the shutdown of one of its transmitters. This shutdown was likely caused by the spacecraft's fault protection system, which shuts down certain systems when power consumption is too high.
According to NASA, it takes about 23 hours for a message to travel one way: from Earth to Voyager 1 and vice versa. On October 16, when NASA engineers sent a command to the spacecraft, they were unable to detect its response until October 18. A day later, communications with Voyager 1 stopped completely.
After an investigation, the space agency team discovered that Voyager 1's fault protection system had switched the spacecraft to a second, lower-power transmitter.
Voyager 1 has two radio transmitters, but has only been using one for years, a so-called 'X-band'. However, the other transmitter – the 'S band' – uses a different frequency that has not been used since 1981.
Currently, NASA has chosen not to switch back to the X-band transmitter until they can determine what triggered the fault protection system – which could take weeks.
“Engineers are being cautious as they want to determine if there are any potential risks associated with enabling the October 24. But it's not a solution the team wants to rely on for too long,” Bruce Wagoner, Voyager's mission assurance manager, told CNN.
Voyager 1 was launched after Voyager 2, but due to a faster route left the asteroid belt earlier than its twin, overtaking Voyager 2 on December 15, 1977. The spacecraft is the first man-made object to enter interstellar space.
The spacecraft was the first to cross the heliosphere – the boundary where influences from outside our solar system are stronger than those from the sun.
So far, Voyager 1 has discovered a thin ring around Jupiter and two new Jupiter moons: Thebes and Metis. It also found five new moons and a new ring called 'G-Ring' near Saturn.
