NASA prepares updates to extend the life of the Voyager probes – 10/22/2023 – Messenger Sideral

An engineering team from JPL (NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory) is working hard to give at least five more years to the longest-running space missions ever launched, the Voyager 1 and 2 probes.

They left Earth in 1977, initially with the aim of flying over Jupiter and Saturn. After achieving this goal, in 1981, Voyager 1 was diverted out of the orbital plane of the planets, while its sister took advantage of a rare planetary alignment to continue flying over Uranus (1986) and Neptune (1989). To date, it is the only spacecraft to have visited these two distant worlds.

The probes made spectacular discoveries: the first close-up view of the four moons of Jupiter discovered by Galileo, including the intriguing Europa, which has an ocean of liquid water beneath its ice crust, and the raging Io, with its tireless volcanoes; the discovery of hitherto unknown natural satellites and rings around the four giant planets; and measuring the magnetic fields of these celestial bodies, among other observations.

After the interplanetary phase of the mission, NASA decided to extend the trip, trying to reach the border region of the Sun’s sphere of influence, where the solar wind begins to be overcome by radiation emanating from other stars, marking, in magnetic terms, the beginning of the interstellar space. The objective was achieved on August 25, 2012, when Voyager 1 crossed this border, 18 billion km from the Sun. Voyager 2, traveling in another direction and at a lower speed, repeated the dose on November 5, 2018.

At this point, both are destined to wander the Milky Way for millions of years. But its ability to send scientific data is much more restricted and ultimately depends on the duration of its atomic plutonium batteries, responsible for supplying electricity to the systems. But the mission could end sooner due to other problems, as the equipment shows increasing signs of degradation.

In fact, last year, the onboard computer responsible for pointing Voyager 1’s antenna towards Earth began sending meaningless streams of data – it seemed to have gone gaga. In effect, the control system was redirecting commands to the computer’s memory rather than executing them.

The case so far remains unclear, but the engineering team managed to resolve the problem and has now created a new programming code to prevent it from occurring again. Installing software also has its risks: it is possible that the computer will save the new program in the wrong location. As a precautionary measure, engineers decided to install it first on Voyager 2, which occurred last Friday (20). Once everything is ok, the team will set out to install the same package on Voyager 1.

The group also prepared a new protocol for firing the thrusters, which allows the probe to be pointed, making activations longer and less frequent, in order to reduce the amount of residue that remains in the transmission lines. With this, NASA hopes to guarantee at least another five years of life for the spacecraft, who knows more. He had taken.

This column is published on Mondays in print, in Folha Corrida.

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