NASA is experiencing communication issues with the distant Voyager 1 spacecraft. As a result, NASA reports that no science or engineering data is being sent back to Earth.
Voyager 1 is about 15 billion miles from Earth, so its binary code signals take about 22.5 hours to reach Earth.
The communication issue with the spacecraft is expected to be resolved in the next few weeks. Of course, Voyager dates back to 1977. At some point we will need to say goodbye to our friend, but no one is ready for that.
NASA’s Voyager FAQ page states:
Engineers expect each spacecraft to continue operating at least one science instrument until around 2025. Even if science data won’t likely be collected after 2025, engineering data could continue to be returned for several more years. The two Voyager spacecraft could remain in the range of the Deep Space Network through about 2036, depending on how much power the spacecraft still have to transmit a signal back to Earth.
It would be great to have another 13 years of discussions with humanity’s most distant probes.
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