After 47 years away from Earth, the Voyager 1 spacecraft is unreachable. NASA hasn’t received any signals from the space probe for a week, but its antennas are still listening, hoping to make contact soon.
A week without hearing from Voyager 1. Neither NASA nor the mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California have released any statements regarding the situation, but something seems off with Voyager 1.
Bernard Netherclift, a Voyager enthusiast who closely monitors communications between the spacecraft and NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), reported that the space agency’s antennas in Robledo de Chavela in Madrid, Spain; Tidbinbilla in Canberra, Australia; and Goldstone in California stopped receiving signals from Voyager 1 a few days ago.
First recovery attempt. At a distance of 15.4 billion miles from Earth, Voyager 1 is the farthest human-made object from our planet. This distance is approximately 23 light hours, which means it takes a full day for NASA communications to travel to Voyager and back.
While NASA can use the six antennas in Madrid to receive Voyager 1’s weak signal, the Canberra station is the only one equipped with a high-powered transmitter capable of reaching a distance like this. As a result, engineers at JPL have made three key decisions to address the situation:
- Reallocate some of Voyager 2’s tracking time to search for Voyager 1 from the Canberra station.
- Deprioritize communications with the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton observatory and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s DSCOVR weather satellite, allowing the stations in Canberra and Madrid to dedicate more time to locating Voyager 1.
- Send a 100 kW transmission from the DSN’s most powerful antenna, which is the 230-foot diameter antenna in Canberra. This marks the first attempt to recover Voyager 1. NASA should communicate the results soon.
What’s going on? Knowing the full story is challenging without official statements from NASA. Voyager 1, launched on Sept. 5, 1977, has experienced several anomalies in recent months. JPL engineers have been working diligently to resolve these issues despite the immense distance, limited power, and outdated software of the probe.
Recent problems. Between November 2023 and May 2024, Voyager 1 temporarily stopped sending science data due to a damaged memory chip. After identifying the issue, NASA engineers relocated the code to other sections of the spacecraft’s limited memory, successfully restoring communications.
More recently, mission controllers had to restart engines that had been dormant for decades in order to steer the spacecraft. The fuel tubes being used by Voyager 1 had become clogged due to an aging rubber diaphragm, which threatened its ability to orient its antennas toward Earth.
Worst-case scenario. If the thrusters that Voyager 1 was using had also failed and the probe became misoriented, NASA might be unable to recover it because commands sent to correct any issues wouldn’t reach the spacecraft.
However, if this is a case of an instrument failure, recovery would still be possible. Voyager 1 is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), which, despite producing less power each year due to the natural decay of plutonium-238, should continue to operate until 2030.
What’s next. NASA has recently sent a blind transmission to Voyager 1, indicating that the space agency has been reviewing the latest telemetry received. NASA hopes to type in some commands that will reach the probe and restore communication.
If the space agency doesn’t receive a response, it may mark the end of one of the most legendary missions in space exploration. However, Voyager 2 is still operational and has enough energy left in its RTG to continue collecting data from interstellar space until 2030.
Image | NASA/JPL-Caltech
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