NASA's Voyager 1 probe could soon go silent forever

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Salon

Published February 19, 2024 2:32PM (EST)


A space probe nearing its 50th birthday has stopped contacting Earth and soon communications could be ceased entirely.

Launched by NASA in 1977, Voyager 1 is one of the longest continually-running spacecraft in human history and the first human-made objects to escape our Solar System. It is still zipping away from us, approximately 15.1 billion miles (24.3 billion kilometers) away from us.

But on November 14, 2023, NASA engineers reported that Voyager 1 has stopped talking to us thanks to a pesky computer glitch. This has disabled the craft’s ability to send back telemetry data, which gives an overview of the overall health of the vehicle.

While Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, stressed that they haven’t given up yet, she told Ars Technica that it would be “the biggest miracle if we get it back.” But as the timeline lengthens from when Voyager 1 ghosted us, NASA engineers are also planning for a somber goodbye.


Read more: https://www.salon.com/2024/02/19/nasas-voyager-1-probe-could-soon-go-silent-forever/?in_brief=true

[central scrutinizer]

1. Say it ain't so!

Bye Vger, RIP

[Ftrump]

7. You absolutely know it will return to earth, all jacked up, and threatening to wipe out all life on the planet unless

it speaks with its creator, right?

[SouthernDem4ever]

10. Wasn't Nomad in "The Changeling" also based on the Voyager satellite?

Last edited Tue Feb 20, 2024, 11:01 AM - Edit history (1)

[Igel]

13. Sad.

Was excited over this when I was in high school.

Makes me sad to see it fail--but not stop going and going.

Also makes me feel old. Then again, hearing about old friends' grandchildren do that all by itself. "Old friend" used to have one meaning, not it's two-way ambiguous.

[bluestarone]

2. God, i wish

TFG was on it.

[Deuxcents]

3. This project is just amazing..lasting 50 years! Best use of my taxes

[Jack-o-Lantern]

4. Godspeed Voyager...job well done.

[2naSalit]

5. I'd say we...

Got our money's worth from that project.

[Volaris]

15. NASA is easily worth 10 times what we pay for it

Can you imagine if the imagery sent back were the sole and copyrighted property of some asshole billionaire, what they would have charged us to see them?

[2naSalit]

17. Yup...

I can. When I was in college and studying satellite imagry, we had to buy any base info we wanted if it wasn't owned by the USG.

[BadGimp]

6. VEGER

[gay texan]

8. Know all that is knowable

And return it to its creator

[SpankMe]

9. Almost 47 years of uptime for the onboard computers with minimal glitches

I have to reboot my Windows 10 computer and Android phone at least every few weeks because they slow down and start freezing and glitching out.

Granted, the computer and phone are way more complex than the Voyager's computers. But a nuclear powered computer in freezing space for 47 years, able to be reprogrammed over and over again and still function without needing a reboot is some kind of bulletproof.

[brooklynite]

11. Those damn Commodore 64s.....

[BaronChocula]

12. DAMMIT!

Shoulda got the extended warranty.

[Grins]

14. It went into the heliosphere.

The area beyond the influence of our sun and solar system. The first man -made object to do that and continue to report back.

Amazing feat.

[Bayard]

16. Its still traveling,

Maybe crash into an inhabited planet and change their entire civilization (for better or worse.)

[Kennah]

18. It is about the size of a rhino, so we'll get to find out the impact soon

[LudwigPastorius]

19. A couple of scientists have done the math on that.

Space is so incredibly empty that it is likely that the Voyager probes won't collide with anything until every star in the universe has burned itself out.

Their paper estimates that the timescale for one of them to collide with a star is in the order of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 years (100 quintillion) This is six orders of magnitude longer than the time by which all stars in the universe will have exhausted their fuel, so the collision will be with a stellar remnant such as a white dwarf or a black hole.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.03503

[electric_blue68]

21. Well, maaaaybe it'll fly into a solar system with intelligent life and they'll detect it through their telescopes, or...

or equivalent space-gazing machinery.

(While some % of problem - should they be relatively near, genuinely space faring, and belligerent. Hopefully a benign race would encounter it.
Yeah, no signs of civilizations out there yet(?) that we've found so...)

[electric_blue68]

20. Hail, mighty Voyager you've served us well. Sail on.