One of the modern world's wonders is the cosmos in its entirety, from the depths of the oceans
to the high skies and beyond.
Scientists all across the world are still trying to figure out how it was created and
what it contains.
These anomalies, particularly in relation to the solar system and space, have piqued
the interest of scientists, and their curiosity has driven many to devote their lives to pursuing
and unravelling these secrets about our universe.
Brilliant and award-winning technologies were created and employed to study our huge cosmos
in order to make these explorations across the solar system more enlightening and accessible
for everyone.
Among these accomplishments is the voyager, a renowned spacecraft that has been orbiting
in space in its complete grandeur for the past 45 years.
This wonderful technology has greatly aided scientists in their investigation of planet
Earth and other planets circling around the sun, but it recently delivered a confusing
message back to scientists when it reached deep space.
What exactly is this amazing technology?
What did it uncover in space, and how does the message's content influence NASA's history
and mankind in general?
Join us as we investigate the voyager's wonders and extensive explorations, as well as the
contents of the message it conveyed to scientists on Earth.
The voyager mission, launched in 1977, was directed by American scientists at NASA to
utilize two robotic interstellar probes, voyager 1 and voyager 2.
These probes were launched in response to a favorable alignment between Jupiter and
Saturn, and they were designed to travel close to the planets in order to collect data for
transmission back to Earth.
Following the launch, another decision was taken to deploy Voyager 2 towards Neptune
and Uranus to investigate in order to communicate data back to the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration's scientists and engineers.
Three radioisotope thermoelectric generators, or RTGs, power the two interstellar robotic
probes.
RTGs are machines that process the heat emitted by radioactive plutonium decay and convert
it into electricity.
Both spacecraft were outfitted with ten scientific equipment, including a two-camera imaging
system, a magnetometer, numerous spectrometers, and a device that detects low-energy charged
objects and particles in conjunction with high-energy cosmic rays.
The voyager program mission team has made use of the spacecraft's communication systems
to examine moons and planets, bringing the total number of scientific research conducted
on each probe to 11 times.
The voyager program initially cost a staggering 865 million dollars, and when the voyager
interstellar mission was added later, it cost an extra 30 million dollars, bringing the
total cost to 895 million dollars.
Both spacecraft carry a golden phonograph record containing pictures and sounds from
Earth, with instructions on the cover as a representation of how to play the record and
data containing the earth's position.
This record is a gold-plated copper disc 30 centimeters in length that acts as a time
capsule containing an interstellar message to any culture, human or extraterrestrial,
in the far future that may recover any of the robotic interstellar probes.
The material of this record was chosen by a committee led by Carl Sagan, which also
included another important team member, Timothy Ferris.
In June 2012, voyager 1 was identified to be almost out of the heliopause and on its
way into interstellar space.
A year later, in September 2013, NASA confirmed that voyager 1 had passed the heliopause into
interstellar space on August 25, 2012, making it the first spacecraft to do so.
Voyager 2 followed closely following Voyager 1 and became the second spacecraft to pass
into interstellar space on November 5th, 2018, however it took some time.
This implies that a one-way signal transmitted to Voyager 1 will take an estimated 21.5 hours
to get there.
To put this in relative terms, this indicates that the signals are travelling 14 billion
kilometers away from Earth.
According to current statistics, voyager 1 was travelling at a speed of 61,185 kilometers
per hour and was 23.3 billion kilometers from the sun, which is 14.6 billion miles away
from Earth.
The voyager 2 probe was travelling at a speed of 55,335 kilometers per hour and was 19.4
billion kilometers from the sun, a distance of 12.1 billion miles from Earth.
Isn't that astounding?
According to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's most recent data on the robotic interstellar
probes dated August 2022, voyager 1 is presently travelling across space at a rate of 17,000
kilometers per second.
But when both interstellar probes crossed the heliopause and entered deep space, voyager
1 recorded some abnormalities, and lately, a frightening message was conveyed to the
NASA scientists.
The certified space aura has been orbiting in space for the past 45 years, and as its
system operations progress further into deep space, scientists notice that the iconic spacecraft
voyager 1 has issued a couple of strange system data with the readout coming from the spacecraft's
attitude articulation and control system.
The spacecraft's motions and orientation did not appear to be in sync.
This led to the notion that voyager 1 is unsure of its location in space.
This assumption was made since the spacecraft's articulation and control system (AACS) is
what allows the spacecraft to communicate data about its environment to NASA, and now
that it has failed to relay the correct data, this has become a major problem.
“A mystery like this is sort of par for the course at this stage of the voyager mission,”
says Suzanne Dodd, who began working as a project manager on the voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft
at NASA's jet propulsion laboratory in California soon after graduating from college in 1984.
She went on to say, “The spacecraft are both 45 years old, which is far beyond what
the mission plan has prepared them for.”
When voyager 1's twin, the voyager 2 probe, was checked, tests and data returned from
voyager 2 revealed that its system functions were normal.
According to the data acquired by NASA scientists, voyager 1's attitude articulation and control
system is delivering data that is randomly generated; nevertheless, this data does not
explain the true specifics of what is happening on board the interstellar probe.
Out of the three systems aboard Voyager 1, the computer system is the one that regulates
the orientation of the spacecraft, such as maintaining the antenna pointing toward Earth
to make sure NASA continues to receive data from Voyager 1, and it is also the one that
controls the spacecraft's thrusters.
“Only the telemetry signals do not make any sense, and it's producing either all zeros
or the number 377.
But since the system issue hasn't made the old spacecraft go into ‘safe’ mode all
is still well with the spacecraft,” Dodd said in a statement.
If the spacecraft was in bad shape, we would see a degradation in our signal from the spacecraft,
which they didn't see.
She went on to say that diagnosing the problem would be done in two steps, the first of which
would be determining the root cause of the problem because that would discern whether
to reset anything on the spacecraft or to switch to some of the backup hardware, “But
one thing I was certain the voyager 1 would continue to be operated.”
However, when the engineers and scientists at NASA investigated the situation and moved
in to fix the problem, they discovered that the attitude articulation and control system
had been sending telemetry data through an onboard computer that had been known to have
stopped functioning years ago, so the computer corrupted the information.
When the team realized this was the situation at hand, they decided to try a solution that
would impose a high risk, they commanded the attitude articulation and control system to
resume sending the data back to the right computer as it had always been.
This procedure succeeded since it fixed the problem and restored the interstellar probe's
systems to normal operation, and data was transferred to the correct computer once more.
Although engineers do not yet understand why the AACS began to route telemetry data into
another incorrect computer, assumptions were made that it could have been an error from
a faulty command generated by another on-board computer if that was the case, they would
be certain that the issue was coming from a different location on the spacecraft the
team would not stop until the root cause of the invalid data was found but they believe
that the issue cannot be a threat to the long-term health and future of voyager 1.
“We're happy to have the telemetry back,” Dodd continued in a statement “We'll do
a full memory readout of the AACS and look at everything it's been doing.
That will help us try to diagnose the problem that caused the telemetry issue in the first
place.
So, we're cautiously optimistic but we still have more investigating to do.”
For the last 45 years, the iconic man-made interstellar robotic probes have been in orbit,
gathering data about our unique solar system and reporting it back to scientists, engineers,
and NASA.
The two probes are currently in interstellar space, a zone beyond the heliopause that no
spacecraft has ever reached.
Nonetheless, voyagers 1 and 2 continue to push the boundaries, smashing records and
making history.
This exploration, made possible by these two inventions, has expanded our understanding
of the universe around and beyond us, and has aided scientists, engineers, researchers,
and even students all around the world in their studies and research about space and
all that is within.
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