Four instruments aboard NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft are returning science data for the first time since a computer malfunction last November; Scientists hope the mission will continue for another decade.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced June 13 that the spacecraft’s four instruments that measure plasma waves, magnetic fields and particles in interstellar space have started returning data again. Two instruments were launched immediately after commands were sent to the spacecraft on May 19, while the other two required what JPL called “additional work” to continue operations.

The devices have been offline since November 2023, when a computer glitch on the spacecraft returned corrupted data. The Tiger engineering team discovered a problem with a damaged memory chip in one of the spacecraft’s computers and rewrote the software to prevent that chip from being used. This effort reestablished contact with the spacecraft in April.

“The Tiger team was able to reprogram and relocate this code for the engineering part of the data modes that were originally coming from the spacecraft,” Voyager project scientist Linda Spilker said at the June 13 meeting of the Exoplanet Analysis Group. announced that the instruments were working again “We are currently receiving scientific data from all four Voyager 1 science instruments.

“This is the first software update for a spacecraft in interstellar space,” he added. “We really did a lot of pre-launch flight software last time.” Voyager 1 was launched in 1977.

With the spacecraft’s computer restarted, declining power levels are the primary factor limiting the lifespan of Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2. Each spacecraft loses about four watts per year as a combination of the degradation of plutonium-238 power supplies and the degradation of thermocouples that convert the heat from this degradation into energy.

Controllers handled the power drop by turning off non-essential systems, including heaters that kept instruments and other components warm. “We are experiencing both energy and heat problems as the spacecraft cools down,” Spilker said.

He said that at some point the mission will need to start shutting down its own instruments, but he expects the spacecraft will be able to continue operating, possibly into the next decade.

“With some luck, the Voyager spacecraft could continue collecting data into the 2030s,” he said. If Voyager 1 reaches 2035, it will be 200 AU, or about 30 billion kilometers, from the Sun. It is now more than 24 billion kilometers from the Sun.

“Right now we are focused on getting to 2027,” he said. “It will be 50” ^And It is the anniversary of the launch of both Voyager spacecraft.

The announcement that Voyager 1’s instruments were returning data again came two days after JPL announced the death of Ed Stone, who served as Voyager’s project scientist from the mission’s launch in 1972 until 2022, when he resigned and was replaced by Spilker . Stone, a professor of physics at Caltech, also served as Caltech’s director from 1991 to 2001.

“Ed Stone often said during the planetary flyby phase that we had a rare opportunity to align the planets, and we took advantage of that,” he said of the Grand Tour orbit that allowed the Voyager spacecraft to fly past Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars. Uranus and Neptune. “I would like to add that both Voyagers still have rare capabilities and Ed will continue to use them.”