Engineers investigating NASA's Voyager 1 telemetry data

The mission team is looking for the source of a system data issue that is preventing them from returning science data.

The engineering team is trying to solve a mystery by figuring out what is happening with the interstellar explorer, which is operating normally, receiving and executing commands from Earth, along with gathering and returning science data. The AACS doesn't reflect what's actually happening onboard.

The AACS controls the orientation. It keeps the high-gain antenna pointed at Earth so that it can send data home. There are signs that the AACS is still working, but the data it returns is invalid. The data may appear to be random, or it may not reflect the state of the AACS.

The onboard fault protection systems are designed to put the spacecraft into safe mode and give engineers time to diagnose an issue. The signal from the high-gain antenna remains in its prescribed orientation.

The team will keep a close eye on the signal as they try to determine if the invalid data is coming from the AACS or another system. Until the nature of the issue is better understood, the team can't say if this will affect how long the spacecraft can collect and transmit science data.

It takes 20 hours and 33 minutes to travel the distance between Earth and Voyager 1. It takes roughly two days to send a message and get a response from the mission team.

Suzanne Dodd, project manager for the Voyager 1 and 2 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said that a mystery like this is par for the course at this stage of the mission. We are in a high-radiation environment that has never been flown in before. There are some big challenges for the engineering team. If there is a way to solve this issue with the AACS, our team will find it.

Dodd said it was possible that the team wouldn't find the source of the anomaly and would adapt to it. They may be able to solve the issue through software changes or using one of the redundant hardware systems.

It wouldn't be the first time the team has relied on backup hardware, as in 2017: engineers switched to another set of thrusters that had originally been used during the mission. The thrusters were unused for 37 years.

The twin, Voyager 2, is currently 12 billion miles from Earth.

The only spacecraft to collect data in space is the Voyagers, launched in 1977. The information they provide from this region has helped drive a deeper understanding of the heliosphere, the diffuse barrier the sun creates around the planets in our solar system.

The number of systems the craft can run is limited by the amount of electrical power produced. The mission engineering team has switched off subsystems in order to reserve power for science instruments. As a result of the diminishing power, no science instruments have been turned off yet, and the team is working to keep the two spacecraft operating and returning unique science beyond 2025.

The engineers are still trying to solve the mystery presented to them, but the scientists will continue to make the most of the data coming down from the craft.

More information: For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit: www.nasa.gov/voyager Citation: Engineers investigating NASA's Voyager 1 telemetry data (2022, May 18) retrieved 18 May 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-05-nasa-voyager-telemetry.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.