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2h ago

Voyager 1 Nears One‑Light‑Day Mark as Engineers Probe Thruster Glitch

Reaching one light-day on Nov. 18 will create a 24-hour one-way delay that forces controllers to rely more on the spacecraft’s onboard fault protection.

Image
(Credit: NASA/JPL)
EXTENDED FOR WEB - Voyager 1 photograph of Jupiter & two of its moons, taken on February 5, 1979, from a distance of 28.4 million kilometres. The white satellite at far right is Europa; the red satellite in front of Jupiter itself is Io. Jupiter's Great Red Spot can be seen at lower left of the planet.

Overview

  • The spacecraft briefly stopped responding for almost 48 hours between Oct. 18 and Oct. 20 before contact returned, and engineers say a group of thrusters went offline and the probe automatically switched to backup thrusters while investigations continue.
  • In recent months the team completed a power-saving operation nicknamed the “Big Bang,” swapping three high-power devices for lower-power alternatives to postpone planned instrument shutdowns.
  • Voyager runs on radioisotope thermoelectric generators that lose roughly four watts of output per year, creating a tightening energy budget that the Big Bang is intended to ease.
  • When Voyager crosses the one-light-day distance on Nov. 18, one-way communications will take about 24 hours and round-trip command cycles will be roughly two days, requiring adapted procedures and greater trust in autonomous safeguards.
  • Despite age and hardware limits, Voyager 1 continues to return unique interstellar measurements and mission teams are preparing operations and monitoring systems to keep the probe working into the coming years.