About Voyager 1
Voyager 1 is about to end. After nearly 47 years of its initiation, Voyager is heading towards its end. And you won’t believe it, but as of today’s date, this spacecraft has traveled so far that it takes just 5 seconds to send a signal to where JWST is, whereas it takes approximately 22 hours and 30 minutes for a signal to reach Voyager 1, and the same amount of time for a signal to return from there to Earth. But unfortunately, the devil of the cosmos is gradually bringing an end to this very legacy of ours, and Voyager 1 is slowly advancing towards the brink of its end. Now, what is the reason that Voyager 1 is coming to an end? And whether Voyager will be able to escape this evil force this time?
Beginning With Problems
When Voyager 1 was launched, it missed crashing into Earth by just 3.4 seconds after failing. Actually, when Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977, just after the launch, there was a fault in its rocket engine. Due to this, despite having 540 kilograms of propellant in the propulsion engine named LR-91, ignition did not start in the second stage. Scientists made many attempts to revive the LR-91, but unfortunately, it couldn’t be done. As a result, scientists were forced to burn the propellant of another component so that Voyager 1 wouldn’t stop ascending and fall down. Now, the compensatory propulsion force was taken from another component, whose fuel was supposed to be used much later in the mission to give Voyager a speed boost. However, almost all of its fuel was depleted from that component as well. And just 3.4 seconds before its fuel ran out, Voyager entered space orbit. Now, if for some reason this orbital entry were to be delayed by 3.4 seconds, then Voyager would have to be aborted. And such a big part of human history would be lost, and this story proves how inspirational and filled with struggles the journey of Voyager 1 has been from the very beginning. After such a major error in the early stages, many people became skeptical whether this mission would even last for a few years or not. But the rest is history. Not only did Voyager 1 show us the first close-up images of Jupiter and Saturn along with outer planets, but along with discovering numerous celestial objects and moons, on August 25, 2012, it also became the first man-made object to enter interstellar space. Now, the biggest thing was that despite being operationally designed for only 5 years, these objects are still active nearly 47 years later. This miracle had never been seen before in any space mission, and perhaps it will never be seen again, which makes this mission even more invaluable.
Inter-spectacular Death
The Voyager spacecraft is the first man-made object to enter interstellar space. As much as it feels proud to hear this, it also brings a sense of sadness. Because the end of this spacecraft began only after entering interstellar space. Actually, as soon as Voyager 1 left the eternal solar system and entered interstellar space, the impact of solar particles on it began to decrease, and interstellar space’s cosmic radiation started heavily impacting it, which in many cases was several times stronger than solar radiation. As a result, after coming into contact with this cosmic radiation, many instruments on Voyager 1 began to malfunction. Simply because they were not designed to face something of this level. Now, the first major impact of this was seen by us in the year 2017. When Voyager’s primary thrusters failed, signs of malfunction started to appear. Now, Voyager 1 didn’t rely too much on its thrusters anyway. But after knowing this fact, scientists thought, Let’s try turning on Voyager’s secondary thrusters once. And surprisingly, those secondary thrusters, which had not been turned on for decades, activated all at once and began to compensate for the primary thrusters. After this, the next issue arose in the year 2019, when scientists had to make a difficult decision related to Voyager. In fact, in 1970, when both Voyager spacecraft were designed and created, 450-watt radioisotope thermoelectric generators, also known as RTGs, were installed for the power supply of both. Which were powered by the decay of Plutonium 238. Now, in these generators, when heat is generated by the decay of plutonium-238, these generators convert that heat into electrical energy, powering the entire probe. Now, since there is also a limit to the decay of this plutonium, because of which, these generators generate up to 4 watts of energy every year. Meaning, in simple terms, today they generate 40-45% less power compared to their initial time, which is 1977. Due to this, it is impossible to power all instruments in the same way as before, as it was done previously. And that is why in 2019, scientists had to decide which equipment’s power consumption they could cut down so as to extend the life of both Voyager crafts. After discussing for quite some time, they decided to shut down heaters of several instruments on Voyager 1. And indeed, that’s what was done to save energy. To sustain Voyager 1 for as long as possible, everything from energy to heat is being managed and improvised. But then in November 2023, Voyager 1 began to face a problem for which perhaps there was no solution.
Binary Turned Zero
Since around November 2023, Voyager’s Flight Data System, also known as FDS, has been acting very strangely. FDS can be considered as Voyager’s computer, which has three sub-parts. Now, the problem is that the part of FDS that receives data or commands from Earth, after receiving the command, executes it, which is working fine. But the issue arises in that part of the FDS that is responsible for transmitting the data captured by Voyager on Earth, which is called the TMU, or Telemetry Moderation Unit. TMU transmits the health and status of instruments on the probe to Earth along with the surrounding scientific data, but in binary form, meaning 0 and 1. However, recently what has happened is that TMU has not stopped sending data. Instead, a continuous, definite pattern of 0s and 1s is being transmitted, in which no type of data is embedded. Initially, scientists thought it might be some kind of glitch causing this pattern to repeat. And to solve this issue, FDS was rebooted, and attempts were made to bring it back to its previous state before the issue occurred. Fortunately, the FDS has been rebooted, but the issue still hadn’t been resolved, and TMU was still transmitting the same gibberish data towards Earth, after which the scientists became completely clueless about what to do next. There are two difficulties in solving this issue. The first is that it takes approximately 21 hours to send any signal from Earth to Voyager, meaning scientists have to spend about two days just for one round of query resolution. As a result, taking quick steps has now become impossible. And the second issue is that the structure of FDS is becoming so outdated that hardly anyone knows much about it. Now, there is no mention of any such issue in the basic manual of FDS, and moreover, there is no one alive from the team that designed FDS who could resolve the issue by revealing any hidden detail related to it based on their designing experience. In short, Voyager has stopped providing us with its powerful data, and perhaps forever, because scientists are continuously taking important steps and initiatives while making guesses. But despite four months passing, still no progress is being made today, and it’s possible that Voyager will now just continue to roam as a symbol of humanity in infinite space. Now, in case the connection is re-established and scientists extend its life further, even then both Voyagers can only be communicated with until 2036 at the most, because after 2036 both Voyagers spacecraft will go beyond the reach of DSN (Deep Space Network). In simple terms, they will be far beyond the communicative maximum distance of humans. After which, whether they can be retracted or not, the chances are absolutely nil. This is the end of the most glorious space mission in human history, which will be roaming inside the Oort cloud 300 years from now and will be flying past another star system 40,000 years later.