{"id":45478,"date":"2024-02-07T23:17:08","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T15:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/humanitys-most-distant-space-probe-jeopardized-by-computer-glitch\/"},"modified":"2024-02-07T23:17:08","modified_gmt":"2024-02-07T15:17:08","slug":"humanitys-most-distant-space-probe-jeopardized-by-computer-glitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/humanitys-most-distant-space-probe-jeopardized-by-computer-glitch\/","title":{"rendered":"Humanity\u2019s most distant space probe jeopardized by computer glitch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Voyager 1 is still alive out there, barreling into the cosmos more than 15 billion miles away. However, a computer problem has kept the mission\u2019s loyal support team in Southern California from knowing much more about the status of one of NASA\u2019s longest-lived spacecraft.<\/p>\n

The computer glitch cropped up on November 14, and it affected Voyager 1\u2019s ability to send back telemetry data, such as measurements from the spacecraft\u2019s science instruments or basic engineering information about how the probe was doing. So, there\u2019s no insight into key parameters regarding the craft\u2019s propulsion, power, or control systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be the biggest miracle if we get it back. We certainly haven\u2019t given up,\u201d said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in an interview with Ars. \u201cThere are other things we can try. But this is, by far, the most serious since I\u2019ve been project manager.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dodd became the project manager for NASA\u2019s Voyager mission in 2010, overseeing a small cadre of engineers responsible for humanity\u2019s exploration into interstellar space. Voyager 1 is the most distant spacecraft ever, speeding away from the Sun at 38,000 mph (17 kilometers per second).<\/p>\n

Voyager 2, which launched 16 days before Voyager 1 in 1977, isn\u2019t quite as far away. It took a more leisurely route through the Solar System, flying past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, while Voyager 1 picked up speed during an encounter with Saturn to overtake its sister spacecraft.<\/p>\n

For the last couple of decades, NASA has devoted Voyager\u2019s instruments to studying cosmic rays, the magnetic field, and the plasma environment in interstellar space. They\u2019re not taking pictures anymore. Both probes have traveled beyond the heliopause, where the flow of particles emanating from the Sun runs into the interstellar medium.<\/p>\n

There are no other operational spacecraft currently exploring interstellar space. NASA\u2019s New Horizons probe, which flew past Pluto in 2015, is on track to reach interstellar space in the 2040s.<\/p>\n

State-of-the-art 50 years ago<\/h2>\n

The latest problem with Voyager 1 lies in the probe\u2019s Flight Data Subsystem (FDS), one of three computers on the spacecraft working alongside a command-and-control central computer and another device overseeing attitude control and pointing.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

The FDS is responsible for collecting science and engineering data from the spacecraft\u2019s network of sensors and then combining the information into a single data package in binary code\u2014a series of ones and zeros. A separate component called the Telemetry Modulation Unit actually sends the data package back to Earth through Voyager\u2019s 12-foot (3.7-meter) dish antenna.<\/p>\n

In November, the data packages transmitted by Voyager 1 manifested a repeating pattern of ones and zeros as if it were stuck, according to NASA. Dodd said engineers at JPL have spent the better part of three months trying to diagnose the cause of the problem. She said the engineering team is \u201c99.9 percent sure\u201d the problem originated in the FDS, which appears to be having trouble \u201cframe syncing\u201d data.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A scanned 1970s-era photo of the Flight Data Subsystem computer aboard NASA\u2019s Voyager spacecraft.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n https:\/\/ntrs.nasa.gov\/api\/citations\/19880069935\/downloads\/19880069935.pdf<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

So far, the ground team believes the most likely explanation for the problem is a bit of corrupted memory in the FDS. However, because of the computer hangup, engineers lack detailed data from Voyager 1 that might lead them to the root of the issue. \u201cIt\u2019s likely somewhere in the FDS memory,\u201d Dodd said. \u201cA bit got flipped or corrupted. But without the telemetry, we can\u2019t see where that FDS memory corruption is.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it was developed five decades ago, Voyager\u2019s Flight Data Subsystem was an innovation in computing. It was the first computer on a spacecraft to make use of volatile memory. Each Voyager spacecraft launched with two FDS computers, but Voyager 1\u2019s backup FDS failed in 1981, according to Dodd.<\/p>\n

The only signal Voyager 1\u2019s Earthbound engineers have received since November is a carrier tone, which basically tells the team the spacecraft is still alive. There\u2019s no indication of any other major problems. Changes in the carrier signal\u2019s modulation indicate Voyager 1 is receiving commands uplinked from Earth.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, we haven\u2019t cracked the nut yet, or solved the problem, or gotten any telemetry back,\u201d Dodd said.<\/p>\n

Breaking out the binders<\/h2>\n

In the next few weeks, Voyager\u2019s ground team plans to transmit commands for Voyager 1 to try to isolate where the suspected corrupted memory lies within the FDS computer. One of the ideas involves switching the computer to operate in different modes, such as the operating parameters the FDS used when Voyager 1 was flying by Jupiter and Saturn in 1979 and 1980. The hope among Voyager engineers is that the transition to different data modes might reveal what part of the FDS memory needs a correction.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

This is a lot more complicated than it might seem on the surface. For one thing, the data modes engineers might command Voyager 1 into haven\u2019t been used for 40 years or more. Nobody has thought about doing this with Voyager\u2019s flight data computer for decades.<\/p>\n

Voyager 1 and 2 have an outsized public profile compared to the resources NASA commits to keeping the spacecraft going. Fewer than a dozen people typically work on the Voyager mission. This number has slightly increased since the computer problem appeared in November, with a small \u201ctiger team\u201d of around eight experts in flight data systems, software, and spacecraft communications assigned to help troubleshoot the glitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot to be morose, but a lot of Voyager people are dead,\u201d Dodd said. \u201cSo the people that built the spacecraft are not alive anymore. We do have a reasonably good set of documentation, but a lot of it is in paper, so you do this archaeology dig to get documents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Imagine rummaging through a user\u2019s manual for an antique car. The book\u2019s weathered pages are probably fraying. That\u2019s not unlike what Voyager engineers, some of whom weren\u2019t alive when the mission launched, are experiencing now.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have sheets and sheets of schematics that are paper, that are all yellowed on the corners, and all signed in 1974,\u201d Dodd said. \u201cThey\u2019re pinned up on the walls and people are looking at them. That\u2019s a whole story in itself, just how to get to the information you need to be able to talk about the commanding decisions or what the problem might be.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a familiar task for Voyager engineers. In the last few years, the mission\u2019s core team at JPL has consulted archived documents to troubleshoot other, less serious computer problems and develop a new way to operate thrusters on both spacecraft to stave off the accumulation of residue in fuel lines.<\/p>\n

While spacecraft engineers love redundancy, they no longer have the luxury of backups on the Voyagers. That means, in any particular section of the spacecraft, a failure of a single part could bring the mission to a halt. Both spacecraft run off nuclear batteries, which produce a little less electricity each year as their plutonium power sources decay. Toward the end of the 2020s, the declining power will force NASA to start turning off instruments on each spacecraft.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

Most of NASA\u2019s modern missions exploring the Solar System have simulators on the ground to test commands and procedures before sending them to the real spacecraft. This practice can reveal commanding errors that could put a mission at risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is difficult to command Voyager,\u201d Dodd said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have any type of simulator for this. We don\u2019t have any hardware simulator. We don\u2019t have any software simulator\u2026 There\u2019s no simulator with the FDS, no hardware where we can try it on the ground first before we send it. So that makes people more cautious, and it\u2019s a balance between getting commanding right and taking risks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Managers are also aware of Voyager 1\u2019s age. It\u2019s operating on borrowed time. \u201cSo we don\u2019t want to spend forever deciding what we want to do,\u201d Dodd said. \u201cSomething else might fail. The thrusters might fail. We want to do the right thing, but we can\u2019t hem and haw over what the right thing is. We need to look at things methodically and logically, and make a decision and go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes time to send up more commands to try to save Voyager 1, operators at JPL will have to wait more than 45 hours to get a response. The spacecraft\u2019s vast distance and position in the southern sky require NASA to use the largest 230-foot (70-meter) antenna at a Deep Space Network tracking site in Australia, one of the network\u2019s most in-demand antennas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe data rates are very low, and this anomaly causes us not to have any telemetry,\u201d Dodd said. \u201cWe\u2019re kind of shooting in the blind a little bit because we don\u2019t know what the status of the spacecraft is completely.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Voyager 1 is still alive out there, barreling into the cosmos more than 15 billion miles away. However, a computer problem has kept the mission\u2019s loyal support team in Southern California from knowing much more about the status of one of NASA\u2019s longest-lived spacecraft. The computer glitch cropped up on November 14, and it affected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2060,4129,190,3110,1398],"class_list":["post-45478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-interstellar-space","tag-jpl","tag-nasa","tag-voyager","tag-voyager-1"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45478"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}