NASA JPL Says Voyager 1 Spacecraft Seem to Be Mysteriously Confused With Data

NASA experts are investigating a mystery with Voyager 1 spacecraft's telemetry data.

In a statement, the space agency said that the Voyager 1 probe, which is presently 14.5 billion miles beyond Earth, is receiving and executing orders from a NASA team on Earth and transmitting back science data.

However, data from the spacecraft's attitude articulation and control system (AACS), which governs its orientation, do not accurately reflect what the Voyager performs, according to the experts from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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The NASA logo is displayed at the agency's booth during CES 2018 at the Las Vegas Convention Center on January 11, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

NASA Detects Mysterious Data with Voyager 1

While the spacecraft is still sending back science data, NASA claims per Fox News that readouts from the probe's attitude articulation and control system (AACS) don't represent what's going on onboard the interstellar explorer.

Voyager 1 is working properly and receiving and executing orders from Earth, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which created both Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2.

Voyager 1's orientation is controlled by the AACS, which keeps its high-gain antenna aimed squarely towards Earth.

According to JPL, the AACS appears to be operational, but the telemetry data is returning "invalid." Furthermore, no onboard fault prevention mechanisms have been activated, and Voyager 1's signal has not been reduced.

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How Engineering Team Would Fix Data

Suzanne Dodd, project manager for Voyager 1 and 2, said a puzzle like this runs the course at this point of the Voyager mission. Both spacecraft are about 45 years old, much older than the mission planners expected.

The crew is already in interstellar space, a high-radiation region in which no spacecraft has ever sailed. As a result, the engineering team faces some significant obstacles.

"But I think if there's a way to solve this issue with the AACS, our team will find it," Dodd said in a Slash Gear report.

Voyager 1 loses around 4 watts of the entire electric power it generates per year. NASA has already turned down various systems, subsystems, and even heaters to save energy for more critical components.

JPL engineers must work around the AACS anomaly with this restricted power source.

When NASA detects an issue like this on a faraway spacecraft, the Voyager team tries to fix it with software upgrades or redundant equipment.

Due to deterioration, Voyager 1's primary thrusters failed in 2017, forcing the team to switch to the spacecraft's backup thrusters, which fired despite having been idle for more than 37 years. When software upgrades or redundant systems fail, NASA gets even more inventive and learns to adapt to the anomaly, which it may have to do if it can't find out what's wrong with the AACS on the Voyager 1.

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