NASA back in communication with Voyager I, now 15 billion miles away | The Sky Guy
After five months NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is once again returning usable data to Earth. Voyager 1 stopped sending usable data in November last year though NASA scientists knew it was receiving data from them.
The space craft is the most distant manmade object in space having entered interstellar space 22 years ago. Voyager 1, and its twin Voyager 2, were launched 46 years ago.
According to NASA: “In March, the Voyager engineering team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed that the issue was tied to one of the spacecraft’s three onboard computers, called the flight data subsystem (FDS). The FDS is responsible for packaging the science and engineering data before it’s sent to Earth.
“The team started by singling out the code responsible for packaging the spacecraft’s engineering data. They sent it to its new location in the FDS memory on April 18. A radio signal takes about 22 ½ hours to reach Voyager 1, which is over 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, and another 22 ½ hours for a signal to come back to Earth.
When the mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on April 20, they saw that the modification worked: For the first time in five months, they have been able to check the health and status of the spacecraft.”
Morning sky: Mercury, Mars and Saturn will be visible in the east before sunrise. Mercury rises around 6 a.m. and will enter the Sun’s glare by the end of the month. Mars rises around 5 a.m. in early May and around 4 a.m. at month’s end. Saturn rises around 4:30 a.m. at the beginning of May and around 2:30 a.m. by end of month. Watch the Moon pass a couple of bright stars and planets, see below for dates.
Evening sky: Brilliant Jupiter has entered the Sun’s glare. Watch the Moon pass a couple of bright stars and planets, see below for dates.
1st: Last quarter Moon.
3rd: Moon, Saturn, and Mars form a big line in the east in the early morning sky.
4th: Crescent Moon between Saturn and Mars in the early morning sky.
4th: Tallahassee Astronomical Society’s free planetarium show, “May Skies over Tallahassee,” at the Downtown Digital Dome Theatre and Planetarium at the Challenger Learning Center (not recommended for children under 5). Doors close at 10 a.m. sharp.
5th: Crescent Moon between Mars and Mercury in the early morning sky.
8th: New Moon.
12th: Crescent Moon near bright star Pollux in Gemini in the early evening sky.
15th: First quarter Moon near bright star Regulus in Leo in the evening sky.
18th: Moon occults bright star Beta Virginis beginning at 1:53 a.m. and ends at 2:50 a.m.
23rd: Full Moon near bright star Antares in Scorpius in the evening sky.
31st: Moon near Saturn in morning sky.
Check out TAS’s events calendar at tallystargazers.org.
Ken Kopczynski is a former president of the Tallahassee Astronomical Society, a local group of amateur astronomers.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: NASA restores data signal from 46-year-old Voyager 1
