It’s no big secret at this point that we are looking at the final years of the two venerable Voyager spacecraft. With their power supplies diminishing and their 1970s-era electronics still giving it all they got, their teams are working miracles to stretch out the time to the final goodbye for as long as possible. Despite these efforts Voyager 1 went silent for more than 24 hours on October 18 and 19, with the team still trying to figure out what happened.
The most recent change to Voyager 1 was the same ‘big bang’ switching of multiple instruments to lower-power versions, while keeping an eye on keeping the electronics and fuel at reasonable temperatures. This should give both spacecraft a few more years before power reserves fall below usable levels. Whether this switch is related to this communication blackout is currently unknown.
From the diagnostic data that the team obtained after communications were restored it’s clear that a group of thrusters went offline with backup units kicking in, indicating that the onboard computer detected some kind anomaly with the former. Whether this is a recurrence of the clogged fuel lines that has been observed before will have to be investigated.
We still fervently hope that both Voyagers can make it into the 2030s before both of them will fall silent forever. Final goodbyes are never easy, but we are most grateful to the Voyager teams over the decades for going above and beyond to make sure that literally everything has been attempted before those fateful days arrive.
Thanks to [Mark Stevens] for the tip.
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This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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