Between stars for 45 years, NASA’s Voyager 1 runs into mysterious trouble

NASA’s Voyager 1 has been on an interstellar journey for years now and it is now experiencing “mysterious” issues that continue to baffle scientists. Voyager 1 is currently 23.3 billion kilometers away from Earth.

The NASA spacecraft has an Attitude Articulation and Control System (AACS), which is responsible for managing Voyager 1’s orientation in deep space. The system also ensures that Voyager 1’s antenna is perpetually pointed towards Earth for easier communication.

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However, the readouts being sent by the AACS to Earth are not aligned with how the spacecraft is behaving in real-time, according to CNN reports citing statements from NASA. The space agency says that the readouts seem to be “random or impossible.”

NASA added that the AACS seems to be working fine so far as data is still being received on Earth, meaning that the antenna is pointed in the desired direction. The signal strength has not been disrupted.

Voyager 1’s ground team is currently attempting to figure out the cause of the faulty data. The team is also looking into the possibilities of broken equipment or a third-party system.

“Until the nature of the issue is better understood, the team cannot anticipate whether this might affect how long the spacecraft can collect and transmit science data”, NASA said in a statement, according to CNN.

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“The spacecraft is almost 45 years old, which is far beyond what the mission planners anticipated. We’re also in interstellar space — a high-radiation environment that no spacecraft have flown in before. So there are some big challenges for the engineering team. But I think if there’s a way to solve this issue with the AACS, our team will find it”, NASA’s press release added.

Communicating with the Voyager 1 is a long process, simply due to its distance from Earth. The signals, travelling at the speed of light, currently take 20 hours and 33 minutes for a one-way journey. A simple call and response cycle takes about two days.