Voyager 1 ‘s system is not reflecting what is really happening on board.
45 years after its launch, the Voyager 1 probe is experiencing a strange problem that has baffled members of the NASA mission .
The ship, despite its longevity, operates in a good way 23 billion kilometers away from the planet . However, the data your system delivers to Earth does not reflect or match the probe’s operations.
What is happening with Voyager 1?
The flaw has to do with Voyager 1 ‘s articulation and attitude control system (AACS) that keeps the spacecraft and its antenna in the proper orientation. And the AACS seems to be working fine, as the spacecraft receives commands, acts on them, and sends scientific data back to Earth with the same signal strength as usual. However, the telemetry data you are sending is very different.
NASA ‘s statement does not specify when the problem began or how long it has lasted.
Solving this problem is also a problem for the space agency: a signal from Earth currently takes 20 hours and 33 minutes to reach Voyager 1; receiving the response from the spacecraft carries the same delay.
The agency also points out that the probe is now in interstellar space, an environment of high radiation that could pose an extra challenge for this ship.
The twin Voyager 2 probe , also launched in 1977, is behaving normally, NASA said. The power the twin spacecraft can produce is always declining, and mission team members have turned off some components to save power, measures they hope will keep the probes running until at least 2025.