NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, humanity’s farthest-traveled object, has experienced a peculiar technical hiccup, reactivating an S-band radio transmitter that has been dormant since 1981. The incident occurred after a routine command triggered a chain of unexpected events, underscoring the challenges of maintaining a nearly 50-year-old spacecraft operating in interstellar space.
Communication trouble in interstellar space
On October 16, NASA instructed Voyager 1 to activate one of its heaters, but the spacecraft failed to respond as expected. With Voyager 1 nearly 25 billion kilometers (15.3 billion miles) away, communications already face a 46-hour round-trip delay. The missed response on October 18 prompted NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) to scan for signals.
To NASA’s surprise, Voyager 1 had shifted to a different frequency, using its S-band transmitter instead of the usual X-band. This transition was likely triggered by the spacecraft’s fault protection system, which conserves energy by shutting down non-essential systems when an instrument draws excessive power.
While engineers managed to reestablish contact via the S-band transmitter on October 22, the X-band transmitter remains offline as troubleshooting continues.
Diagnosing aging technology
Voyager 1’s S-band transmitter, last used in the early 1980s, was designed as a backup communication system. The successful reconnection highlights the robustness of the spacecraft’s design, allowing for diagnostics even across vast distances.
This incident follows several recent technical issues. In 2022, the probe transmitted garbled telemetry data for months due to a glitch, while a corrupted memory chip caused communication failures from late 2023 to mid-2024.
Racing against time
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1, alongside its twin Voyager 2, has continued to send valuable data from interstellar space, a region beyond the Sun’s influence. The dwindling power supply means science operations are expected to cease after 2025. By 2036, Voyager 1 will likely drift beyond the reach of Earth’s communication networks.
A legacy for the stars
Even as the Voyagers face their twilight years, their journey remains a testament to human ingenuity. The spacecraft are expected to pass within two light-years of neighboring stars in about 40,000 years, carrying messages from Earth inscribed on their Golden Records. These records, containing sounds, images, and symbols of human culture, may serve as humanity’s enduring legacy in the cosmos.