voyager 1 digital camera

Voyagers 1 and 2 Take Embedded Computers into Interstellar Space

The July issue of Scientific American magazine has a terrific review of the Voyager space mission that details the trips Voyagers 1 and 2 have made through the Solar System. The article is titled “ Record-Breaking Voyager Spacecraft Begin to Power Down .” Both spacecraft have now entered interstellar space and are the first human artifacts to do so. Tim Folger wrote the article for Scientific American . Towards the end of the article, Folger points out that Voyagers 1 and 2 were designed before the advent of the microprocessor and that the mission has lasted 44 years, so far, which is about 40 years longer than the planned design life for the spacecraft.

The article then quotes Stamatios Krimigis, a PhD physicist and space scientist who’s spent more than half a century at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Krimigis says, “The amount of software on these instruments is slim to none. On the whole, I think the mission lasted so long because almost everything was hardwired. Today’s engineers don’t know how to do this. I don’t know if it’s even possible to build such a simple spacecraft [now]. Voyager is the last of its kind.”

Now hold on there.

I mean no disrespect to Dr. Krimigis, but he’s somewhat myopic about hardwired circuits. Many of today’s engineers know how to design hardwired logic circuits; we just don’t use TTL or CMOS chips any longer, because that’s an inefficient and outmoded way to design circuits at the board level. Instead, hardware engineers design systems based on FPGAs. We no longer rely solely on schematics for our hardware designs; VHDL and Verilog allow us to develop far more complex logic circuits.

Hardware design for space applications is alive and well and closely tracks the rest of hardware design, and it has migrated to FPGAs. Engineers designing for high-radiation environments in space have developed several radiation-tolerant design techniques for FPGAs including safe FSMs (finite state machines), Hamming-coded FSMs, and Triple Module Redundancy (TMR). Major FPGA vendors including AMD/Xilinx, Lattice, and Microchip (formerly Microsemi and Actel) either have sent devices into space as essential components on various missions or they offer radiation-tolerant FPGAs for space applications, or both.

For example, various Microchip and AMD/Xilinx FPGAs were aboard the twin Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers and are on the plutonium-powered Perseverance rover currently trundling around on Mars. Also, a Microchip ProASIC3 FPGA buzzed around the thin Martian atmosphere aboard the enormously successful Ingenuity helicopter, serving as an interface to the helicopter’s sensors and servo actuators. (See “ An FPGA Flies on Mars .”) Another Microchip FPGA took the express bus to Pluto aboard NASA’s New Horizon’s mission as part of an instrument package designed to measure Pluto’s atmospheric temperature and pressure profiles. These are just a few examples. There are many.

In addition to FPGAs that have flown in space, there are FPGAs that aspire to fly in space. CAES (Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions) signed an agreement early this year with Lattice Semiconductor and now offers versions of the Certus-Pro NX FPGAs, which are manufactured with a 28nm FDSOI process that’s inherently radiation-tolerant.

Voyager 1 and 2 launched in 1977. That was several years before FPGA’s were invented, so there are no FPGAs on these spacecraft. In addition, the circuit design of the Voyager spacecraft did not rely exclusively on hardwired electronics as you might infer from the Scientific American article. There’s a lot of software onboard these space vehicles. In fact, Voyager 1 and 2 each carry six onboard computers, originally organized as a distributed system consisting of three dual-redundant computers: the Computer Command System (CCS), the Attitude Articulation Control System (AACS), and the Flight Data System (FDS). Without these six embedded computers, which have operated continuously for nearly half a century, the two spacecraft would never have reached the Solar System’s outer planets, and all the scientific data collected by the instruments on board the spacecraft would never have made it back to Earth.

The CCS – designed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California – controls all major spacecraft systems, monitors the spacecraft’s health, maintains temperatures inside of the spacecraft, manages the AACS and FDS computers, and controls the eleven onboard scientific instruments by sending them commands. The CCS employs an 18-bit instruction word with a 6-bit opcode and a 12-bit address, and it has an 18-bit data word.

To control development costs, the CCS is nearly identical to the embedded computer developed for the Viking spacecraft that went to Mars, with the addition of interface ports for the FDS and AACS. The CCS is constructed entirely of TTL logic chips, because that’s how things were done in the early 1970s; It was the heyday of the 7400 series TTL family, which was dominated by Texas Instruments. The paired CCS computers use dual-redundant plated-wire read/write memory, which works like magnetic-core memory but uses wire plated with a magnetic coating instead of ferrite beads. The CCS is an interrupt-driven computer and runs bare-metal code. There is no operating system.

The AACS has a very similar architecture to the CCS and therefore also traces its lineage to the earlier Viking spacecraft computer. This computer handles attitude control for the spacecraft and controls articulation of the scan platform, which was mounted on a boom to give the spacecraft’s imaging instruments a moving platform for a better field of view. The AACS controls the spacecraft’s boom servomotors and hydrazine thrusters and is responsible for keeping Voyager’s large dish antenna pointed at the Earth so that contact isn’t lost. Superficially, at least, the architecture of the CCS and AACS seem to have more in common with the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-9 minicomputer that I learned to program in 1971 than it has with the early 4- and 8-bit microprocessors of the day.

The FDS was custom designed for the Voyager spacecraft because JPL needed a faster computer to format, store, and transmit images (the data that we most identify with the Voyager missions) and to send the spacecraft’s science and engineering telemetry data back to Earth. Unlike the other two computer systems used on Voyager, the FDS is not built with TTL chips. It’s the first computer based on CMOS chips to be flown in space.

Instead of plated-wire memory, the FDS employs volatile CMOS RAM for read/write memory. This choice was heretical in JPL spacecraft design back in the day. JPL preferred nonvolatile memory so that the spacecraft computer could survive a temporary power loss. However, the Voyager spacecraft are powered by plutonium-fueled, nuclear-thermoelectric generators, and the FDS had a direct connection to the generator’s output, so a power loss indicates much bigger problems on the spacecraft than a mere computer glitch.

Part of the data formatting performed by the FDS includes forward error correction (FEC) using Golay coding. As the two Voyager spacecraft get more and more distant, their signals become weaker, the radio channel becomes noisier, and so the signal-to-noise ratio falls. Golay coding allows data sent to Earth to survive three bits of reception error per data word. However, Golay coding also doubles the number of bits sent, thus cutting effective channel bandwidth in half.

JPL enhanced the FDS capabilities on Voyager 2 when the original Jupiter/Saturn mission was extended to the outer planets. The enhancements included image compression and a switch to Reed-Solomon FEC for image processing. Reed-Solomon codes incur significantly less overhead than the original Golay FEC code and are now widely used for data storage and communications applications. The Voyager FDS software was a pioneer in its use of this coding algorithm.

Both FDS enhancements allow Voyager 2 to push more data through the increasingly diminished radio bandwidth as the spacecraft travels farther and farther away from Earth, but at a cost. The enhancements require full-time use of the second, redundant FDS computer for the new image-processing algorithms because one FDS computer is no longer sufficient to run all the FDS software. So, the price for the enhancements was a loss of FDS redundancy. It’s important to note that the enhancements were possible only because they could be uploaded to Voyager’s computers as software upgrades.

The CCS, AACS, and FDS constitute a sophisticated, distributed, dual-redundant, embedded computer system that JPL designed and built into the Voyager spacecraft. It was the instruments on the spacecraft that lacked computers and software. This is one of the odd ways that the US builds uncrewed spacecraft for scientific missions. The main mission owner is JPL, which designs and assembles the spacecraft from components made by contractors. JPL is the system integrator. But the JPL spacecraft are trucks or buses that carry instruments to a destination, and those instruments are usually designed and built by a variety of academic consortia and research labs, including the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

Voyager’s instruments did not have the power budgets or the available time for custom computer development, and microprocessors were far too new at the time, so the electrical engineers working on these projects created simpler systems using hardwired logic.

The eleven instruments on the two identical Voyager spacecraft are:

•         Imaging Science Subsystem: a two-camera video system, with one narrow-angle camera and one wide-angle camera. The system used monochrome, slow-scan vidicon tubes and as many as eight filters per camera in a filter wheel to generate monochrome, color, and UV images.
•         Radio Science Subsystem: used the spacecraft’s radio systems to determine the physical properties of planetary and satellite ionospheres and atmospheres and determine their masses, gravity fields, and densities during encounters with these bodies.
•         Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer: a Michelson interferometer and a single-channel radiometer that measured the composition of planets’ and satellites’ atmospheres.
•         Ultraviolet Spectrometer: measured atmospheric properties and atmospheric radiation in the UV band (400 to 1600 A).
•         Triaxial Fluxgate Magnetometer: designed to investigate the magnetic fields of Jupiter and Saturn, the solar-wind interaction with the magnetospheres of these planets, and the interplanetary magnetic field out to the solar wind boundary and beyond.
•         Plasma Spectrometer: investigated the macroscopic properties of plasma ions and measured electrons in the energy range from 5 eV to 1 keV.
•         Low Energy Charged Particle Instrument: designed to study energetic particles including electrons, protons, alpha particles, and heavier nuclei in both planetary and interplanetary environments.
•         Cosmic Ray Subsystem: a High-Energy Telescope System (HETS) and a Low-Energy Telescope System (LETS) that studied the origin, life history, and dynamic contribution of interstellar cosmic rays, element nucleosynthesis in cosmic-ray sources, the behavior of cosmic rays in the interplanetary medium, and trapped energetic particles in the planetary environment.
•         Planetary Radio Astronomy Investigation: studied the physics of magnetospheric plasma resonances and nonthermal radio emissions using a swept-frequency radio receiver operating in two polarization states at frequencies ranging from 20kHz to 40.5MHz.
•         Photopolarimeter Subsystem: an 8-inch Cassegrain telescope with a polarizer and filters for eight bands in the 2200A to 7300A spectral region that feeds a photomultiplier tube, used to study surface texture and composition of planets, to capture information about the size distribution and composition of the bodies in planetary rings, and to obtain information on atmospheric scattering properties and density for the atmospheres of the planets.
•         Plasma Wave Subsystem: a 16-channel, step-frequency receiver and a low-frequency waveform receiver used to provide continuous, sheath-independent measurements of the electron-density profiles at Jupiter, Saturn, and the other visited planets.

These instruments helped to alter our understanding of the Solar System. We also know from these instruments, at least the ones still powered up and working, that the two Voyager spacecraft have now traveled beyond the Solar System’s boundary and into interstellar space.

In addition to these eleven scientific instruments, the Voyager spacecraft carry a gold-plated LP record that encodes sounds and images, just in case one or both spacecraft are discovered by other civilizations eons from now. One of the sounds on the record is a message from Jimmy Carter, who was president when the Voyagers launched. Carter said, “We cast this message into the cosmos.”

Along with these recordings, we sent these other civilizations early examples of our embedded computer technology, circa the middle 1970s. With their snail-like clock rates and tiny memories, these computers may seem very primitive by today’s standards. But so far, they have shepherded the Voyagers for nearly 50 years, over billions of miles and through intense radiation belts, while continuing to send priceless scientific data back to Earth.

For more information about the Voyager spacecraft and its embedded computer systems, I recommend a wonderful 2019 presentation made by Aaron Cummings, titled “Uptime 15,364 days – The Computers of Voyager.” You’ll find it on YouTube, here .

One thought on “Voyagers 1 and 2 Take Embedded Computers into Interstellar Space”

• Pingback: Voyagers 1 and 2 Take Embedded Computers into Interstellar Space – EEJournal – Info Bbea

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

featured video

Featured paper, featured chalk talk.

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Voyager 1, First Craft in Interstellar Space, May Have Gone Dark

The 46-year-old probe, which flew by Jupiter and Saturn in its youth and inspired earthlings with images of the planet as a “Pale Blue Dot,” hasn’t sent usable data from interstellar space in months.

By Orlando Mayorquin

When Voyager 1 launched in 1977, scientists hoped it could do what it was built to do and take up-close images of Jupiter and Saturn. It did that — and much more.

Voyager 1 discovered active volcanoes, moons and planetary rings, proving along the way that Earth and all of humanity could be squished into a single pixel in a photograph, a “ pale blue dot, ” as the astronomer Carl Sagan called it. It stretched a four-year mission into the present day, embarking on the deepest journey ever into space.

Now, it may have bid its final farewell to that faraway dot.

Voyager 1 , the farthest man-made object in space, hasn’t sent coherent data to Earth since November. NASA has been trying to diagnose what the Voyager mission’s project manager, Suzanne Dodd, called the “most serious issue” the robotic probe has faced since she took the job in 2010.

The spacecraft encountered a glitch in one of its computers that has eliminated its ability to send engineering and science data back to Earth.

The loss of Voyager 1 would cap decades of scientific breakthroughs and signal the beginning of the end for a mission that has given shape to humanity’s most distant ambition and inspired generations to look to the skies.

“Scientifically, it’s a big loss,” Ms. Dodd said. “I think — emotionally — it’s maybe even a bigger loss.”

Voyager 1 is one half of the Voyager mission. It has a twin spacecraft, Voyager 2.

Launched in 1977, they were primarily built for a four-year trip to Jupiter and Saturn , expanding on earlier flybys by the Pioneer 10 and 11 probes.

The Voyager mission capitalized on a rare alignment of the outer planets — once every 175 years — allowing the probes to visit all four.

Using the gravity of each planet, the Voyager spacecraft could swing onto the next, according to NASA .

The mission to Jupiter and Saturn was a success.

The 1980s flybys yielded several new discoveries, including new insights about the so-called great red spot on Jupiter, the rings around Saturn and the many moons of each planet.

Voyager 2 also explored Uranus and Neptune , becoming in 1989 the only spacecraft to explore all four outer planets.

Voyager 1, meanwhile, had set a course for deep space, using its camera to photograph the planets it was leaving behind along the way. Voyager 2 would later begin its own trek into deep space.

“Anybody who is interested in space is interested in the things Voyager discovered about the outer planets and their moons,” said Kate Howells, the public education specialist at the Planetary Society, an organization co-founded by Dr. Sagan to promote space exploration.

“But I think the pale blue dot was one of those things that was sort of more poetic and touching,” she added.

On Valentine’s Day 1990, Voyager 1, darting 3.7 billion miles away from the sun toward the outer reaches of the solar system, turned around and snapped a photo of Earth that Dr. Sagan and others understood to be a humbling self-portrait of humanity.

“It’s known the world over, and it does connect humanity to the stars,” Ms. Dodd said of the mission.

She added: “I’ve had many, many many people come up to me and say: ‘Wow, I love Voyager. It’s what got me excited about space. It’s what got me thinking about our place here on Earth and what that means.’”

Ms. Howells, 35, counts herself among those people.

About 10 years ago, to celebrate the beginning of her space career, Ms. Howells spent her first paycheck from the Planetary Society to get a Voyager tattoo.

Though spacecraft “all kind of look the same,” she said, more people recognize the tattoo than she anticipated.

“I think that speaks to how famous Voyager is,” she said.

The Voyagers made their mark on popular culture , inspiring a highly intelligent “Voyager 6” in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” and references on “The X Files” and “The West Wing.”

Even as more advanced probes were launched from Earth, Voyager 1 continued to reliably enrich our understanding of space.

In 2012, it became the first man-made object to exit the heliosphere, the space around the solar system directly influenced by the sun. There is a technical debate among scientists around whether Voyager 1 has actually left the solar system, but, nonetheless, it became interstellar — traversing the space between stars.

That charted a new path for heliophysics, which looks at how the sun influences the space around it. In 2018, Voyager 2 followed its twin between the stars.

Before Voyager 1, scientific data on the sun’s gases and material came only from within the heliosphere’s confines, according to Dr. Jamie Rankin, Voyager’s deputy project scientist.

“And so now we can for the first time kind of connect the inside-out view from the outside-in,” Dr. Rankin said, “That’s a big part of it,” she added. “But the other half is simply that a lot of this material can’t be measured any other way than sending a spacecraft out there.”

Voyager 1 and 2 are the only such spacecraft. Before it went offline, Voyager 1 had been studying an anomalous disturbance in the magnetic field and plasma particles in interstellar space.

“Nothing else is getting launched to go out there,” Ms. Dodd said. “So that’s why we’re spending the time and being careful about trying to recover this spacecraft — because the science is so valuable.”

But recovery means getting under the hood of an aging spacecraft more than 15 billion miles away, equipped with the technology of yesteryear. It takes 45 hours to exchange information with the craft.

It has been repeated over the years that a smartphone has hundreds of thousands of times Voyager 1’s memory — and that the radio transmitter emits as many watts as a refrigerator lightbulb.

“There was one analogy given that is it’s like trying to figure out where your cursor is on your laptop screen when your laptop screen doesn’t work,” Ms. Dodd said.

Her team is still holding out hope, she said, especially as the tantalizing 50th launch anniversary in 2027 approaches. Voyager 1 has survived glitches before, though none as serious.

Voyager 2 is still operational, but aging. It has faced its own technical difficulties too.

NASA had already estimated that the nuclear-powered generators of both spacecrafts would likely die around 2025.

Even if the Voyager interstellar mission is near its end, the voyage still has far to go.

Voyager 1 and its twin, each 40,000 years away from the next closest star, will arguably remain on an indefinite mission.

“If Voyager should sometime in its distant future encounter beings from some other civilization in space, it bears a message,” Dr. Sagan said in a 1980 interview .

Each spacecraft carries a gold-plated phonograph record loaded with an array of sound recordings and images representing humanity’s richness, its diverse cultures and life on Earth.

“A gift across the cosmic ocean from one island of civilization to another,” Dr. Sagan said.

Orlando Mayorquin is a general assignment and breaking news reporter based in New York. More about Orlando Mayorquin

What’s Up in Space and Astronomy

Keep track of things going on in our solar system and all around the universe..

Never miss an eclipse, a meteor shower, a rocket launch or any other 2024 event  that’s out of this world with  our space and astronomy calendar .

Scientists may have discovered a major flaw in their understanding of dark energy, a mysterious cosmic force . That could be good news for the fate of the universe.

A new set of computer simulations, which take into account the effects of stars moving past our solar system, has effectively made it harder to predict Earth’s future and reconstruct its past.

Dante Lauretta, the planetary scientist who led the OSIRIS-REx mission to retrieve a handful of space dust , discusses his next final frontier.

A nova named T Coronae Borealis lit up the night about 80 years ago. Astronomers say it’s expected to put on another show  in the coming months.

Is Pluto a planet? And what is a planet, anyway? Test your knowledge here .

• Become A Member
• Gift Membership
• Kids Membership
• Other Ways to Give
• Explore Worlds
• Defend Earth

How We Work

• Education & Public Outreach
• Space Policy & Advocacy
• Science & Technology
• Global Collaboration

Our Results

Learn how our members and community are changing the worlds.

Our citizen-funded spacecraft successfully demonstrated solar sailing for CubeSats.

Space Topics

• Planets & Other Worlds
• Space Missions
• Space Policy
• Planetary Radio
• Space Images

The Planetary Report

The eclipse issue.

Science and splendor under the shadow.

Get Involved

Membership programs for explorers of all ages.

Get updates and weekly tools to learn, share, and advocate for space exploration.

Volunteer as a space advocate.

Support Our Mission

• Renew Membership
• Society Projects

The Planetary Fund

Accelerate progress in our three core enterprises — Explore Worlds, Find Life, and Defend Earth. You can support the entire fund, or designate a core enterprise of your choice.

• Strategic Framework
• News & Press

The Planetary Society

Know the cosmos and our place within it.

Our Mission

Empowering the world's citizens to advance space science and exploration.

• Explore Space
• Take Action
• Member Community
• Account Center
• “Exploration is in our nature.” - Carl Sagan

Bruce Murray Space Image Library

Highest resolution Voyager 1 color view of the Great Red Spot

The color in this mosaic was rather difficult to process. The WAC filters are significantly different from the corresponding NAC filters and the left/right edges are not covered by all three WAC filters. There are also some areas in the NAC mosaic where only green or violet was available (especially near the corners of the NAC area). The color is somewhat less accurate there.

For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your web browser .

Voyager 1, Now Most Distant Human-made Object in Space

In a dark, cold, vacant neighborhood near the very edge of our solar system, the Voyager 1 spacecraft is set to break another record and become the explorer that has traveled farthest from home.

At approximately 2:10 p.m. Pacific time on February 17, 1998, Voyager 1, launched more than two decades ago, will cruise beyond the Pioneer 10 spacecraft and become the most distant human-created object in space at 10.4 billion kilometers (6.5 billion miles.) The two are headed in almost opposite directions away from the Sun. As with other spacecraft traveling past the orbit of Mars, both Voyager and Pioneer derive their electrical power from onboard nuclear batteries.

"For 25 years, the Pioneer 10 spacecraft led the way, pressing the frontiers of exploration, and now the baton is being passed from Pioneer 10 to Voyager 1 to continue exploring where no one has gone before," said Dr. Edward C. Stone, Voyager project scientist and director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

For 25 years, the Pioneer 10 spacecraft led the way, pressing the frontiers of exploration, and now the baton is being passed from Pioneer 10 to Voyager 1 to continue exploring where no one has gone before.

Dr. Edward Stone

Voyager Project Scientist

"At almost 70 times farther from the Sun than the Earth, Voyager 1 is at the very edge of the Solar System. The Sun there is only 1/5,000th as bright as here on Earth -- so it is extremely cold and there is very little solar energy to keep the spacecraft warm or to provide electrical power. The reason we can continue to operate at such great distances from the Sun is because we have radioisotope thermal electric generators (RTGs) on the spacecraft that create electricity and keep the spacecraft operating," Stone said. "The fact that the spacecraft is still returning data is a remarkable technical achievement."

Voyager 1 was launched from Cape Canaveral on September 5, 1977. The spacecraft encountered Jupiter on March 5, 1979, and Saturn on November 12, 1980.

Then, because its trajectory was designed to fly close to Saturn's large moon Titan, Voyager 1's path was bent northward by Saturn's gravity, sending the spacecraft out of the ecliptic plane - the plane in which all the planets except Pluto orbit the Sun.

Launched on March 2, 1972, the Pioneer 10 mission officially ended on March 31, 1997. However NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffet Field, CA, intermittently receives science data from Pioneer as part of a training program for flight controllers of the Lunar Prospector spacecraft now orbiting the Moon.

"The Voyager mission today presents an unequaled technical challenge. The spacecraft are now so far from home that it takes nine hours and 36 minutes for a radio signal traveling at the speed of light to reach Earth,"said Ed B. Massey, project manager for the Voyager Interstellar Mission. "That signal, produced by a 20 watt radio transmitter, is so faint that the amount of power reaching our antennas is 20 billion times smaller than the power of a digital watch battery."

Having completed their planetary explorations, Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, are studying the environment of space in the outer solar system. Although beyond the orbits of all the planets, the spacecraft still are well within the boundary of the Sun's magnetic field, called the heliosphere. Science instruments on both spacecraft sense signals that scientists believe are coming from the outermost edge of the heliosphere, known as the heliopause.

The heliosphere results from the Sun emitting a steady flow of electrically charged particles called the solar wind. As the solar wind expands supersonically into space in all directions, it creates a magnetized bubble -- the heliosphere -- around the Sun. Eventually, the solar wind encounters the electrically charged particles and magnetic field in the interstellar gas. In this zone the solar wind abruptly slows down from supersonic to subsonic speed, creating a termination shock. Before the spacecraft travel beyond the heliopause into interstellar space, they will pass through this termination shock.

"The data coming back from Voyager now suggest that we may pass through the termination shock in the next three to five years," Stone said. "If that's the case, then one would expect that within 10 years or so we would actually be very close to penetrating the heliopause itself and entering into interstellar space for the first time."

Reaching the termination shock and heliopause will be major milestones for the mission because no spacecraft have been there before and the Voyagers will gather the first direct evidence of their structure. Encountering the termination shock and heliopause has been a long-sought goal for many space physicists, and exactly where these two boundaries are located and what they are like still remains a mystery.

Science data are returned to Earth in real-time to the 34- meter Deep Space Network (DSN) antennas located in California, Australia and Spain. Both spacecraft have enough electricity and attitude control propellant to continue operating until about 2020, when electrical power produced by the RTGs will no longer support science instrument operation. At that time, Voyager 1 will be almost 150 times farther from the Sun than the Earth -- more than 20 billion kilometers (almost 14 billion miles) away.

On Feb. 17, Voyager 1 will be 10.4 billion kilometers (6.5 billion miles) from Earth and is departing the Solar System at a speed of 17.4 kilometers per second (39,000 miles per hour). At the same time, Voyager 2 will be 8.1 billion kilometers (5.1 billion miles) from Earth and is departing the solar system at a speed of 15.9 kilometers per second (35,000 miles per hour).

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the Voyager Interstellar Mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D. C.

Written by Mary A. Hardin (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

What If We Turned On Voyager 1’s Camera?

February 22, 2023

This is the famous pale blue dot image taken by Voyager 1 , showing our Earth as a tiny pixel, 6 billion kilometers away. This picture was taken before many of you were even born , but the elements and materials that made us are all contained in that tiny blue dot we call home. But this date is significant.

Just 34 minutes after this picture was taken, the cameras were switched off forever , leaving Voyager 1 completely blind. Since then, the spacecraft has become the furthest man-made object in space, now at a point 24 billion kilometers from Earth.

But why were the cameras turned off? And what would it take to turn them back on?

The Voyager space probes have broken so many records during their time in space. Not only are they the furthest objects in space , but they’ve also been operating for the longest amount of time, over 45 years.

It’s incredible to think that after all that time spent in the harsh environment of space, the computers and systems that were designed here on Earth in the 70’s are still functioning. Voyager is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG). This is basically a nuclear battery that can last for a very long time. These are very common on spacecraft and it’s why Voyager has been able to run continuously for over 45 years.

Voyager 1 was filled with technology that was way ahead of its time, and a perfect example of that is the camera system.

Voyager 1 camera technology

Voyager 1 has two vidicon cameras onboard which are essentially very early television cameras using analog to digital technology. They had an effective resolution of 800 by 800 pixels and captured 8 bit images in grayscale.

One had a wide angle lens for capturing the planets in full detail as the probe passed close by. The other had a narrow angle lens which was zoomed in and could capture the smaller details of each planet it observed and of course, look back at our solar system as it grew smaller and smaller on the horizon. As always, fitting stuff onto a spacecraft is a complex process, as everything has to be made as small and as light as possible. These cameras didn´t produce the sharpest images and they were only black and white.

However, before the light reached these cameras, it went through an optics system that allowed it to form colored images.

This was a filter wheel that contained violet, blue, green and orange filters. Voyager would take multiple images of its subject using each of its filters. As light passed through the filter, it would only allow light from that color to pass through, the other colors would be absorbed.

The images were still taken in grayscale, but each image would have areas with different amounts of brightness, where the light was more sensitive to a certain color. Once these images were sent to Earth, they were saturated with their respective filter color and combined to form a full color image.

This is essentially how the human eye works, since our eyes have three color sensing cones: red, green and blue, which are combined to give us vision with a range of colors. But with Voyager, the real magic happens inside the vidicon tube.

Voyager´s Vidcon Tube

After the light passes through the lens and filter wheel, it enters into the vidicon tube. The first thing the photons hit is a see-through faceplate, made from a layer of tin-oxide, which has a photoconductive target plate just behind it. When the photons hit the target plate, free electrons are created.

The higher the intensity of light on a given point, the more free electrons are created. These free electrons are then attracted to the faceplate, leaving behind gaps on the target plate. After this, a cathode at the back of the tube fires electrons towards the target plate to scan the image.

These electrons reach the target plate and fill in the gaps, creating an electric current. This signal contains the image data and can now be transmitted back to Earth.

Sending pictures back to Earth

We’ve seen how Voyager’s cameras convert the light into a signal, but what happens after that? This wasn´t an ordinary film camera where each picture could be processed here on Earth. Each image that Voyager captured would take up around 5 million bits of information – or just over half a megabyte.

This doesn’t sound like a lot by today’s standards, but when your spacecraft is billions of kilometers away, sending that data back is extremely difficult. Back in the day when Voyager 1 was much closer, it had a maximum data rate of around 115,000 bits per second. At this rate, it would take about 43 seconds to send an entire image back to Earth.

Now, the data rate is only around 160 bits per second, meaning it would take over 8 hours just to transmit one image. On top of that, Voyager 1 is now 23 billion kilometers away, so that signal would actually take 21 hours to reach us.

Since the camera can produce an image much faster than it can transmit the data, the signal from the vidicon camera is stored onto magnetic tape. This is basically an early analog harddrive. This data builds up over time and can be transmitted whenever Voyager 1 has a good line of communication with Earth. But why hasn’t Voyager’s camera been turned on in over 30 years?

Turning on the camera

To answer this, we need to look at where Voyager 1 was when it took its last picture. The famous pale blue dot image was taken from a point in space 6 billion kilometers from Earth. At this point, the spacecraft was so far away, that everything appeared as a tiny dot.

The spacecraft was also heading on a path that would eventually make it the first spacecraft to leave the solar system and reach interstellar space. So in order to know when this happened, the team wanted to prioritize the instruments that would detect interstellar plasma, a sign that Voyager 1 had left our solar system.

But Voyager 1 was already 13 years old at this point and it still had decades to go before reaching interstellar space. So, in order to still be talking with the spacecraft at that point, the engineers needed to extend its lifetime drastically.

Voyager´s power source

Like many spacecraft, Voyager 1 is powered by an RTG, which takes the heat from a radioactive material and turns it into electricity. Every year, the power output decays by about 4 Watts – and now, Voyager 1 is only producing 57% of its initial power output.

The camera system alone uses just over 40 watts of power. And so to buy the spacecraft more time, the team began shutting down various instruments onboard Voyager to reduce its power consumption.

To save memory, the team also removed the software onboard Voyager, which was responsible for operating the camera. The computers and software here on Earth that were used to analyze the images don’t even exist anymore.

And due to the cameras and their heaters being exposed to the harsh conditions of outer space for several decades , it’s likely that they wouldn’t be able to function any more. But assuming the cameras were still in good condition, what would they see if they were turned back on?

Many think that Voyager 1 is so far from the sun that it will be in complete darkness, but this is not true. Despite now being 23 billion kilometers away, the light from the sun is still 16 times brighter than the Moonlight here on Earth, so it’s definitely enough to read a book.

However, there just isn’t anything interesting or big enough around Voyager to capture on camera. If Voyager took an image today, it would be dark – but you’d still see the sun and some planets as tiny faint pixels. Perhaps the most incredible thing is that despite traveling 23 billion kilometers, the star constellations in our sky would look exactly the same.

If Voyager wanted a different perspective of our galaxy, it would need to travel thousands of light years just to see a slight shift in the stars. Voyager 1 will eventually achieve this, millions of years after we are gone and long after we have lost contact with the space probe.

Ewan Cunningham

More Stories

Communicating with space, how do we do it?

How SpaceX Gets These Amazing Camera Shots

How does SpaceX transport the Falcon 9?

Why doesn’t the sound of a rocket launch kill you?

Enter Giveaway

Every month we do a giveaway on the primal space youtube channel. enter here and we'll announce the winner at the end of the next video.

Concorde’s 74 Minute Total Solar Eclipse

Starship Hits Major Milestones during Impressive Test Flight

The Pepsi Concorde – Why Blue Paint Caused Problems for Concorde

The Incredible Paris Pneumatic Clock System from 1880

Surviving Venus: The Venera Space Probe’s Crazy Journey

SpaceX 2023 review: Starship, Reusability, and the Year of the Heavy

The Brennan Gyro Monorail from 1910 – an incredible piece of engineering

Updating Voyager from 15 Billion Miles Away

• Engineering
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service

Latest Stories

© Primal Nebula – Starship Productions 2024

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

More From Forbes

Nasa celebrates as 1977’s voyager 1 phones home at last.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is depicted in this artist’s concept traveling through interstellar ... [+] space, or the space between stars, which it entered in 2012.

Voyager 1 has finally returned usable data to NASA from outside the solar system after five months offline.

Launched in 1977 and now in its 46th year, the probe has been suffering from communication issues since November 14. The same thing also happened in 2022 . However, this week, NASA said that engineers were finally able to get usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems.

Fixing Voyager 1 has been slow work. It’s currently over 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, which means a radio message takes about 22.5 hours to reach it—and the same again to receive an answer.

The problem appears to have been its flight data subsystem, one of the spacecraft’s three onboard computers. Its job is to package the science and engineering data before it’s sent to Earth. Since the computer chip that stores its memory and some of its code is broken, engineers had to reinsert that code into a new location.

Next up for engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California is to adjust other parts of the FDS software so Voyager 1 can resume sending science data.

Huawei’s Pura 70 Ultra Beats iPhone With Pioneering New Feature

The juan soto trade has helped both the yankees and the san diego padres, four reportedly hurt after army horses run loose through central london, beyond the ‘heliopause’.

The longest-running and most distant spacecraft in history, Voyager 1, was launched on September 5, 1977, while its twin spacecraft, Voyager 2, was launched a little earlier, on August 20, 1977. Voyager 2—now 12 billion miles away and traveling more slowly—continues to operate normally.

Both are now beyond what astronomers call the heliopause—a protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the sun, which is thought to represent the sun’s farthest influence. Voyager 1 got to the heliopause in 2012 and Voyager 2 in 2018.

The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of Earth taken Feb. 14, 1990, by NASA’s Voyager 1 at a distance of ... [+] 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) from the sun. The image inspired the title of scientist Carl Sagan's book, "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space," in which he wrote: "Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us."

Pale Blue Dot

Since their launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard Titan-Centaur rockets, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have had glittering careers. Both photographed Jupiter and Saturn in 1979 and 1980 before going their separate ways. Voyager 1 could have visited Pluto, but that was sacrificed so scientists could get images of Saturn’s moon, Titan, a maneuver that made it impossible for it to reach any other body in the solar system. Meanwhile, Voyager 2 took slingshots around the planets to also image Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989—the only spacecraft ever to image the two outer planets.

On February 14, 1990, when 3.7 billion miles from Earth, Voyager 1 turned its cameras back toward the sun and took an image that included our planet as “a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” Known as the “Pale Blue Dot,” it’s one of the most famous photos ever taken. It was remastered in 2019 .

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Voyager 1 transmitting data again after Nasa remotely fixes 46-year-old probe

Engineers spent months working to repair link with Earth’s most distant spacecraft, says space agency

Earth’s most distant spacecraft, Voyager 1, has started communicating properly again with Nasa after engineers worked for months to remotely fix the 46-year-old probe.

Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which makes and operates the agency’s robotic spacecraft, said in December that the probe – more than 15bn miles (24bn kilometres) away – was sending gibberish code back to Earth.

In an update released on Monday , JPL announced the mission team had managed “after some inventive sleuthing” to receive usable data about the health and status of Voyager 1’s engineering systems. “The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again,” JPL said. Despite the fault, Voyager 1 had operated normally throughout, it added.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 was designed with the primary goal of conducting close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn in a five-year mission. However, its journey continued and the spacecraft is now approaching a half-century in operation.

Voyager 1 crossed into interstellar space in August 2012, making it the first human-made object to venture out of the solar system. It is currently travelling at 37,800mph (60,821km/h).

Hi, it's me. - V1 https://t.co/jgGFBfxIOe — NASA Voyager (@NASAVoyager) April 22, 2024

The recent problem was related to one of the spacecraft’s three onboard computers, which are responsible for packaging the science and engineering data before it is sent to Earth. Unable to repair a broken chip, the JPL team decided to move the corrupted code elsewhere, a tricky job considering the old technology.

The computers on Voyager 1 and its sister probe, Voyager 2, have less than 70 kilobytes of memory in total – the equivalent of a low-resolution computer image. They use old-fashioned digital tape to record data.

The fix was transmitted from Earth on 18 April but it took two days to assess if it had been successful as a radio signal takes about 22 and a half hours to reach Voyager 1 and another 22 and a half hours for a response to come back to Earth. “When the mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on 20 April, they saw that the modification worked,” JPL said.

Alongside its announcement, JPL posted a photo of members of the Voyager flight team cheering and clapping in a conference room after receiving usable data again, with laptops, notebooks and doughnuts on the table in front of them.

The Retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who flew two space shuttle missions and acted as commander of the International Space Station, compared the JPL mission to long-distance maintenance on a vintage car.

“Imagine a computer chip fails in your 1977 vehicle. Now imagine it’s in interstellar space, 15bn miles away,” Hadfield wrote on X . “Nasa’s Voyager probe just got fixed by this team of brilliant software mechanics.

Voyager 1 and 2 have made numerous scientific discoveries , including taking detailed recordings of Saturn and revealing that Jupiter also has rings, as well as active volcanism on one of its moons, Io. The probes later discovered 23 new moons around the outer planets.

As their trajectory takes them so far from the sun, the Voyager probes are unable to use solar panels, instead converting the heat produced from the natural radioactive decay of plutonium into electricity to power the spacecraft’s systems.

Nasa hopes to continue to collect data from the two Voyager spacecraft for several more years but engineers expect the probes will be too far out of range to communicate in about a decade, depending on how much power they can generate. Voyager 2 is slightly behind its twin and is moving slightly slower.

In roughly 40,000 years, the probes will pass relatively close, in astronomical terms, to two stars. Voyager 1 will come within 1.7 light years of a star in the constellation Ursa Minor, while Voyager 2 will come within a similar distance of a star called Ross 248 in the constellation of Andromeda.

More on this story

Cosmic cleaners: the scientists scouring English cathedral roofs for space dust

Russia acknowledges continuing air leak from its segment of space station

Uncontrolled European satellite falls to Earth after 30 years in orbit

Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko sets world record for most time spent in space

‘Old smokers’: astronomers discover giant ancient stars in Milky Way

Nasa postpones plans to send humans to moon

What happened to the Peregrine lander and what does it mean for moon missions?

Peregrine 1 has ‘no chance’ of landing on moon due to fuel leak

Most viewed.

Voyager 1 to Take Pictures of Solar System Planets

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, having completed its mission along with Voyager 2 to explore the outer planets, will use its cameras February 13-14 to take an unprecedented family portrait of most of the planets in our solar system.

The collection of images will be from a unique point-of-view -- looking down on the solar system from a position 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane in which the planets orbit the Sun. No other spacecraft has ever been in a position to attempt a similar series of photos of most of the planets.

Voyager 1, launched in 1977, is now about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) from Earth. The Voyager spacecraft are controlled by and their data received at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

"This is not just the first time, but perhaps the only time for decades that we'll be able to take a picture of the planets from outside the solar system," said Voyager Project Scientist Dr. Edward C. Stone of Caltech. No future space missions are planned that would fly a spacecraft so high above the ecliptic plane of the solar system, he said.

Starting shortly after 5 p.m. (PST) on Feb. 13 and continuing over the course of four hours, Voyager 1 will point its wide- and narrow-angle cameras at Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth and Venus. Mercury is too close to the Sun to be photographed by Voyager's cameras, and Pluto is too far away and too small to show up in images taken by the spacecraft. Beginning with the dimmest of the targets - Neptune -- and working toward the Sun, Voyager 1 will shutter about 64 images of the planets and the space between them.

The constellation Eridanus (The River), stretching behind the planets from Voyager 1's perspective, will provide the backdrop for the images.

Due to the schedules of several spacecraft being tracked by NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN), the images will be recorded on board Voyager 1 and played back to DSN receivers on Earth in late March. The Voyager imaging team estimates that processing the images to reveal as much detail as possible will take several weeks. Most of the planets will appear as relatively small dots (about one to four pixels, or picture elements, in the 800-by-800 pixel frame of one Voyager image).

The enormous scale of the subject matter makes it unlikely that the entire set of images can be mosaicked to produce for publication a single photograph showing all the planets. Even an image covering the planets out to Jupiter would easily fill a poster-sized photographic print. At the least, imaging team hopes to assemble a mosaicked image composed of the frames showing Earth, Venus and perhaps Mars together.

Voyager 1, rather than Voyager 2, received the solar system photo assignment largely because of Voyager 1's improved viewpoint of the planets.

Voyager 1 completed flybys of Jupiter and Saturn in 1979 and 1980, respectively. Voyager 2 flew past Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1981, Uranus in 1986 and Neptune last August. Both are now on missions that will take the spacecraft to the boundary of our solar system and into interstellar space.

According to Voyager engineers and scientists, the only potential damage from pointing the cameras toward the Sun is that the shutter blades of the wide-angle camera might warp. There are no plans, however, to use Voyager 1's cameras after the solar system photo series is completed.

The Voyager mission is conducted by Caltech's JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications.

Is This 'Amazing Shot of Jupiter' Taken with Ordinary Digital Camera Real?

"looks like your coffee table," one social media user commented., aleksandra wrona, published april 25, 2024.

About this rating

On April 18, 2024, a photograph was shared to X (formerly Twitter), allegedly showing a close-up photograph of Jupiter. "Using my Nikon Z 8, I captured this amazing shot of Jupiter," the post read. "Looks like your coffee table, but it's as good as anything NASA puts out," one user commented under the post.

(X user @AlwaysFrosted2)

However, Google reverse-image search results  showed the photograph was first shared on Reddit in 2018. Its caption at that time described it as "a stone slab that looks like Jupiter's storms." In the comment, the original poster specified that the stone in the photo was Brentwood, "a quartzite sandstone from Tennessee," known for looking like petrified wood. Moreover, it's worth noting that the Nikon Z 8 camera was not released until May 2023. Therefore, we have rated this claim as "Miscaptioned."

We did locate an authentic close-up photograph of Jupiter captured in 1979, showing its Great Red Spot, on Getty Images:

Voyager 1's image of a close up of the turbulent region around the Great Red Spot on Jupiter, a storm that has been raging for hundreds of years. The white spot shows another cloud system that appears to have formed around 1940. Two Voyager spacecraft were launched in 1977 to explore the planets in the outer solar system. Voyager 1 flew past Jupiter at 278,000 kilometres in March 1979 before flying on to Saturn. (Photo by Oxford Science Archive/Print Collector/Getty Images)

(Getty Images)

We have fact-checked other Jupiter-related topics. In January 2022 we investigated whether a time-lapse video showed the moons Europa and Io orbiting Jupiter. In August 2021, we fact-checked a photograph allegedly showing what Jupiter would look like if viewed from its south pole. We have also written an article on a photograph taken in the summer of 2020, reportedly showing Jupiter in the sky surrounded by its four largest moons.

Liles, Jordan. "Does Time-Lapse Video Show Europa and Io Orbiting Jupiter?" Snopes , 28 Jan. 2022, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/europa-io-jupiter-video/.

Nikon Releases the Z 8 Full-Frame Mirrorless Camera | News | Nikon About Us . https://www.nikon.com/company/news/2023/0510_mirrorless_01.html. Accessed 22 Apr. 2024.

Palma, Bethania. "Does a Photo Show Jupiter and Its Four Moons?" Snopes , 26 Nov. 2020, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/jupiter-moons/.

---. "Does This Pic Show What Jupiter's Southern Pole Looks Like?" Snopes , 26 Aug. 2021, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/jupiter-south-pole/.

By Aleksandra Wrona

Aleksandra Wrona is a reporting fellow for Snopes, based in the Warsaw area.

Article Tags

NASA hears from Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, after months of quiet

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA has finally heard back from Voyager 1 again in a way that makes sense.

The most distant spacecraft from Earth stopped sending back understandable data last November. Flight controllers traced the blank communication to a bad computer chip and rearranged the spacecraft’s coding to work around the trouble.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California declared success after receiving good engineering updates late last week. The team is still working to restore transmission of the science data.

It takes 22 1/2 hours to send a signal to Voyager 1, more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away in interstellar space. The signal travel time is double that for a round trip.

Contact was never lost, rather it was like making a phone call where you can’t hear the person on the other end, a JPL spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Launched in 1977 to study Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 1 has been exploring interstellar space — the space between star systems — since 2012. Its twin, Voyager 2, is 12.6 billion miles (20 billion kilometers) away and still working fine.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Police: Young woman found shot on side of road in Salisbury

Parents speak of heartache after baby dies at day care

Strip club site to become new Chick-fil-A restaurant, city plans say

Renovated hotel to provide housing for more than 100 Charlotte families

Police: 2-year-old airlifted after robbery at Union Co. home, suspect on the run

Latest news.

FCC to vote on net neutrality reinstatement

TikTok has promised to sue over the potential US ban. What’s the legal outlook?

Chicago Cubs pitcher, Charlotte native told to change glove because of American flag patch

Wedding venue closes abruptly, leaving couples scrambling

First cargo ship passes through newly opened channel in Baltimore since bridge was struck, collapsed

• Best Space Photos
• Best Telescopes for Beginners
• Best Smart Telescopes
• Best Star Projectors
• Best Telescopes for Astrophotography
• Best Telescopes for Viewing Planets

Voyager 1 spacecraft is still alive and sending signals to Earth

NASA’s two Voyager spacecraft, launched in the 1970s, have passed beyond the orbit of Pluto and into interstellar space , making them the most distant man-made objects to exist in the universe. However, as you’d expect from technology that is nearly 50 years old, the pair of probes have had their share of technical difficulties in their time. But now, NASA has announced that it is back in contact with Voyager 1, around five months after communications with the spacecraft were disrupted. The remarkable pair of explorers continue out into the depths of space to fight another day.

The recent issues with Voyager 1 came to a head in November of last year, when NASA announced that it was experiencing communications issues . Although the instruments and most systems appeared to be working as expected, there was a problem with one of the onboard computers called the flight data system (FDS), which meant that science and engineering data was not being sent back to Earth correctly.

The FDS is responsible for packaging up data from the spacecraft (both engineering data, which is about the health of the spacecraft itself, and science data, which is about the readings it takes using its instruments) and relaying this data back to Earth. A single chip in the FDS had failed, which caused the FDS to malfunction and not send data correctly.

• How to watch SpaceX Crew-7 return to Earth this week
• Stunning footage shows space capsule hurtling toward Earth
• Asteroid impacted by spacecraft is reshaped like an M&M ‘with a bite taken out’

Replacing a chip in a spacecraft that is around 15 billion miles away isn’t possible. So the engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory had to come up with a way to route data around the compromised chip. But on hardware this old, there aren’t a lot of resources to spare. There was no one location that could hold the code from the chip, so it had to be divided up and stored in different locations around the FDS.

The first portion of the new code was sent out to Voyager 1 on April 18, but the probe is so far from Earth that it takes nearly a full day for the signal to arrive there, and another full day for the response to arrive back at Earth. But there was good news: On April 20, the team received health and status information from the spacecraft for the first time since November 2023.

Now, the team will continue sending updates to the software to deal with the FDS issue, and will hopefully be able to access science data again soon.

Editors' Recommendations

• NASA and Boeing start fueling Starliner spacecraft for first crewed flight
• NASA addresses the crack in the hatch of the Crew-8 spacecraft
• Odysseus lunar lander sends a ‘fitting farewell transmission’ to Earth
• NASA launches PACE satellite to observe Earth’s oceans and atmosphere
• NASA’s Juno spacecraft to pass within 1,000 miles of volcanic moon Io

The Voyager 1 spacecraft is experiencing a communication issue, meaning it is currently unable to send science data back to Earth. Launched in 1977, the pair of Voyager probes are the most distant man-made objects in the universe, having traveled beyond the orbit of the planets and into interstellar space, the region between stars.

NASA announced the issue this week, confirming that the spacecraft was still able to send and receive commands but not science data. "Engineers are working to resolve an issue with one of Voyager 1’s three onboard computers, called the flight data system (FDS)," NASA wrote in an update. "The spacecraft is receiving and executing commands sent from Earth; however, the FDS is not communicating properly with one of the probe’s subsystems, called the telemetry modulation unit (TMU). As a result, no science or engineering data is being sent back to Earth."

NASA has shared the first images taken by its Psyche mission, which launched in October to study a strange metal asteroid located in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft, which is still on its long journey, is expected to make its arrival at the asteroid in 2029 and is currently between the orbits of Earth and Mars. But it is already testing out its instruments by taking a test image using its two cameras and sending it back to Earth, in a process called first light.

The image captured by Psyche's cameras shows a field of stars in the constellation Pisces. It is a mosaic made from the total of 68 images taken by the two cameras, with its first camera Imager A taking images for the left side and its second camera imager B taking images for the right side.

The European Space Agency (ESA)'s Juice mission is heading to Jupiter, but it isn't traveling all that way in a straight line. Instead, like most solar system missions, the spacecraft makes use of the gravity of other planets to give it a push on its way.

But Juice will be making an unusual maneuver next year, carrying out the first gravity assist flyby around both Earth and the moon. This week, the spacecraft made its longest maneuver yet to get into position ahead of the first of its kind flyby in 2024.

• The Contents
• The Making of
• Where Are They Now
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Q & A with Ed Stone

golden record

Where are they now.

• frequently asked questions
• Q&A with Ed Stone

Mission Status

Instrument status.

Where are the Voyagers now?

To learn more about Voyager, zoom in and give the spacecraft a spin. View the full interactive experience at Eyes on the Solar System . Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

View Voyager

Space Flight Operations Schedule (SFOS)

SFOS files showing Voyager activity on Deep Space Network (DSN)

2024 Tracking Schedule

2023 tracking schedule, 2022 tracking schedule, 2021 tracking schedule, 2020 tracking schedule, 2019 tracking schedule, 2018 tracking schedule, 2017 tracking schedule, 2016 tracking schedule, 2015 tracking schedule, 2014 tracking schedule, 2013 tracking schedule, 2012 tracking schedule, 2011 tracking schedule, 2010 tracking schedule, 2009 tracking schedule, 2008 tracking schedule, 2007 tracking schedule, 2006 tracking schedule, 2005 tracking schedule, 2004 tracking schedule, 2003 tracking schedule, 2002 tracking schedule, 2001 tracking schedule, 2000 tracking schedule, 1999 tracking schedule, 1998 tracking schedule, 1997 tracking schedule, 1996 tracking schedule, 1995 tracking schedule, 1994 tracking schedule.

The Top 12 Things to Do in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

Take a first-rate trip to Russia's fifth city

Ershov_Maks/Getty Images

Although it's Russia's fifth-largest city, you could be forgiven for never having heard of Nizhny Novgorod. Notwithstanding that another Russian city is simply called " Novgorod ," the current name of the city just doesn't have a memorable ring to it. (By contrast, its name during the Soviet years — Gorky, like the famous author — was much more iconic.) At any rate, this city of just over a million around six hours east of Moscow is more than worth a visit. These are just 12 reasons why!

Tour the Kremlin's 13 Towers

Like most every other city in Russia, Nizhny Novgorod is home to a Kremlin. (The word "kremlin" means "citadel" in Russian, and has nothing to do with the modern Russian government) One thing that elevated the Kremlin of Nizhny Novgorod above others in Russia (with the possible exception of the Moscow Kremlin and one or two others), however, is the fact that its wall has 13 towers. During the summer months, at least one free walking tour per day operates from the main entrance of Nizhny Novgorod's Kremlin.

Climb Russia's Longest Staircase

Named for one of the most famous Russian pilots of the early aviation age (Valery Chkalov), the Chkalov Stairs connect two of Nizhny Novgorod's public squares, which sit on the upper and lower embankments of the Volga River, respectively. Built in 1943 (during the period when Nizhny Novgorod was known as Gorky), the Chkalov Stairs currently have the distinction of being the longest staircase in Russia.

Go Wild at Limpopo Zoo

One thing that surprises many travelers to Nizhny Novgorod is how amazing its zoo, colloquially known as Limpopo is. In addition to being home to a tropical botanical garden (which, not surprisingly, is indoors), the zoo hosts a variety of reptiles, mammals and birds. There's also a small sculpture park on the grounds of Nizhny Novgorod's zoo, including both original and replica pieces.

Shop (or Just Stroll) Along a Storied High Street

Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street has been the de-facto "Main Street" of Nizhny Novgorod for more than 200 years. Well, minus the Soviet Union period, during which the cafes that once (and now) lined it became somewhat worthless, since intellectual conversations were basically forbidden. These days, you can come here for a cup of Russian tea then shop at the dozens of boutiques you'll find on either side of the street.

Sun Yourself at the Spit

Nizhny Novgorod sits at the confluence of the Oka and Volga Rivers, with the triangle of land at the point they meet being known as the Nizhny Novgorod Spit. Ignoring the unfortunate double-meaning of its name for a moment, this is actually a wonderful place to get a tan, if it's summer in the city and the sun happens to be shining. Even if not, photographers will enjoy a trip here for a view of the Kremlin and city center across the Volga.

Marvel at the Open-Air Museum of Rozhdestvenskaya Street

Like Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street, Rozhdestvenskaya Street has long been one of the most important streets in Nizhny Novgorod. However, while the former has become a primarily commercial artery in recent decades, the charm of the latter is in its well-maintained buildings, which hearken back to the mid-18th century. In fact, some locals go so far as to consider Rozhdestvenskaya Street an "open-air museum."

Ride Russia's Newest Cable Car

Russian investment in infrastructure isn't quite as dramatic as that of, say, China, but the Federation has nonetheless built a selection of interesting and modern transportation systems since the fall of the USSR. Among them is the just-opened cable car, which travels from the center of Nizhny Novgorod over the Volga River to suburban Bor. At any rate, a ride over the river and back is definitely worth inclusion on your list of things to do in Nizhny Novgorod.

Taste Traditional Shchi Soup

Shchi is one of Nizhy Novgorod's most delicious local specialties, available in most every local restaurant that serves Russian food. From above, a bowl of shchi seems incredibly complicated, with a colorful palette that suggests the inclusion of dozens of diverse ingredients. In fact, the magic of shchi is in its simplicity. Building on the traditional pan-Russian recipe of cabbage, pork fat and salt (yes, just three ingredients), locals in Nizhny Novgorod sometimes add minced meat or egg whites as bonus items, then top the tangy soup with a dollop of sour cream.

Survey Amazing Russian Orthodox Architecture

Think the only amazing Russian Orthodox churches are in Moscow and St. Petersburg? Think again. Nizhny Novgorod boasts several amazing examples of Russian Orthodox architecture. From the brilliant golde domes John the Baptist Cathedral near the Volga River, to the expansive grounds of 14th-century Pechersky Ascension Monastery, Nizhny Novgorod is an architecture buff's dream!

Take a Look Back in Time

Nizhny Novgorod's historical center is relatively large and well-preserved, but a stroll (or 10) through it isn't the only way to get a feel for the city's centuries-long past. Head to the Russian Museum of Photography, which not only showcases a variety of images of Nizhny Novgorod that date back a century or even longer, but also spotlights the equipment Russian photographers have used throughout the years, and notable figures in Russia's photography history as well.

Visit the Convent from the Movie "Salt"

You'd be forgiven if you've entirely forgotten the 2010 film "Salt." However, if you remember any destination from this spy thriller, it's likely the facade of Makaryev Convent, which is located within day-trip distance of Nizhny Novgorod. Having served as a monastery from its consecration in the early 15th century up until the beginning of the Russian Revolution, Makaryev became a convent after the fall of the Soviet Union , and is now home to 22 nuns.

Take an Excursion to a 12th-Century Tea Town

Another worthwhile day trip from Nizhny Novgorod is to the town of Gorodets, which sits about an hour to its northwest. With a history dating back to the 12th century, Gorodets boasts an interesting array of architecture and museums, including one dedicated to samovars. 

Moscow - Russian Rivers and Waterways Port of Call

25 Best Things to Do in Moscow

The Top 12 Things to Do in Novgorod, Russia

9 Things to See in Moscow's Red Square

Top 12 Things to Do in Kazan, Russia

The Top 10 Things to Do in Tver, Russia

The Top 15 Places to Visit in Russia

The Top 12 Things to Do in Ethiopia

St. Petersburg, Russia

15 Top Things to Do in Lisbon, Portugal

10 Must-Visit Palaces and Castles in Russia

Top 12 Things to Do in Irkutsk

The Top 12 Things to Do in Astrakhan

The Top 15 Things to Do in Bordeaux, France

The Top 11 Things to Do in Belgorod, Russia

The Top 12 Things to Do in Omsk

Districts [ edit ]

The city is divided by the River Oka into two major parts: the Upper city ( Verkhnyaya or Nagornaya chast ) on the hilly right side and the Lower city ( Nizhnyaya or Zarechnaya chast — what literally means "the part over the river") on the left bank of the river. The Upper city is the old historical part of Nizhny Novgorod, whereas the Lower city is larger, newer and consists of more industrial districts.

Understand [ edit ]

History [ edit ]

The city was founded by Grand Duke George II of Russia in 1221 at the confluence of two most important rivers of his principality, the Volga and the Oka. Its name literally means Newtown the Lower , to distinguish it from the older Novgorod . A major stronghold for border protection, Nizhny Novgorod fortress took advantage of a natural moat formed by the two rivers.

Along with Moscow and Tver, Nizhny Novgorod was among several newly founded towns that escaped Mongol devastation on account of its insignificance and grew up into important centers of Russian political life during the period of Tatar yoke. For a short period of time it was the capital of the Suzdal Principality and competed with Moscow for the power in the region. However the competition with Moscow was lost and in 1392 the city was incorporated into Muscovy. Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin was built in 1508-1511 (under supervision of the Italian fortress engineers) and became one of the strongest Russian citadels. There is a legend saying that the project was initially developed with participation of Leonardo da Vinci. However there is no documented proof of Leonardo's work for that project, the only thing the legend is based on is the striking resemblance of Leonardo's sketches and the actual Kremlin schemes. The fortress was strong enough to withstand Tatar sieges in 1520 and 1536.

In 1612, the so-called national militia , gathered by a local merchant Kuzma Minin and commanded by Knyaz Dmitry Pozharsky expelled the Polish troops from Moscow, thus putting an end to the Time of Troubles and establishing the rule of the Romanov dynasty.

In 1817, the Makaryev Monastery Fair, one of the liveliest in the world the 16th-18th centuries, was transferred to Nizhny Novgorod, which thereupon started to attract numerous visitors and by the mid-19th century it turned Nizhny Novgorod into trade capital of the Russian Empire.

Under the Soviet period, the trade connections of the city were abandoned and Nizhny Novgorod became an important industrial centre instead. During the communist time the city was closed to foreigners to safeguard the security of Soviet military research. The physicist and the Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov was exiled there during 1980-1986 to limit his contacts with foreigners.

Climate [ edit ]

The climate in the region is humid continental and it is similar to the climate in Moscow , although colder in winter, which lasts from late November until late March with a permanent snow cover.

By car [ edit ]

Nizhny Novgorod is situated on the M7/E30 road. The road is in decent condition, although with traffic it can take anywhere from 4 to 8 hours to drive to/from Moscow .

By boat [ edit ]

Turflot [dead link] , Infoflot , and many other companies operate multi-day river cruises down the Volga from early May to the end of September.

Many companies operate passenger boat service between Moscow and Astrakhan , with stops at most cities along the Volga River.

Get around [ edit ]

By foot [ edit ].

The city centre is compact and walkable. However, there are many inclines or steps from the river banks. The bridges are not pedestrian friendly since the sidewalk is very narrow and cars drive extremely fast close to the pedestrians.

By city rail [ edit ]

The City Rail connects areas where there are no metro lines. Connects with the subway at the Moscow railway station. It has 2 lines: Sormovskaya and Priokskaya. The fare by train costs 28 rubles. According to the Citicard Transport Card, the fare is 26 rubles. Also by train you can get to the nearest suburb, or transfer to suburban trains to Dzerzhinsk, Bor, Semenov or Arzamas.

By bus and trolleybus [ edit ]

As of May 2017 in each district of the city there are several city bus routes. The number of trolleybus routes is much less. In one district of the city there are 1-2 trolleybus routes. Trolleybus routes are completely absent in the Leninsky city district. It is worth noting that trolleybuses do not connect the Lower City to the Upper. This is because the trolleybuses do not have enough power to climb the mountain.

The trolleybus network is divided into 3 parts:

• The upper trolleybus network (it unites all three districts - Nizhegorodsky, Sovetsky and Prioksky) with a turning circle on the Minin Square, near the Kremlin.
• The lower trolleybus network (connects Kanavinsky, Moskovsky and Sormovsky districts)
• The Avtozavod trolleybus network (connects all the distant sleeping microdistricts among themselves)

By tram [ edit ]

Throughout the city, land trams run. The longest route of all is 417. It connects the outskirts of Avtozavodsky district with the Moskovsky Rail Terminal. The journey takes about 1 hour and 20 minutes. The route passes through the sleeping areas (approximately 75% of the way). Also in remote neighborhoods there are routes of several more trams, but in most cases, they are in the Upper City. By the way, you can reach there by tram 27 or 10 directly from the Moscow railway station.

By marshrutka [ edit ]

Marshrutkas do not stop at every stop. To indicate your intention to exit a marshrutka, press a button and to indicate your intention to enter a marshrutka en-route, you need to wave your hand.

By bicycle [ edit ]

Nizhny Novgorod has not very developed bicycle infrastructure. Special bike paths exist only on the Upper-Volga and Lower-Volga embankments and on Rozhdestvenskaya Street.

The upper city is very hilly and full of steep inclines and even many locals will get off their bicycles and push their bikes up the hill by foot. Drivers can be reckless and pose a danger to cyclists. The roads can also be icy during the winter. City cyclists solve this problem by replacing summer tires with winter tires.

Also, in 2017 the implementation of a new integrated transport scheme of the city began. It provides for a large number of bicycle paths in the Upper City (including on Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street) and in the Lower City.

See [ edit ]

Monuments [ edit ]

• Monument to Valery Chkalov, the famous test pilot of the 1930s, known for his ultra long flight from Moscow to Washington State via the North Pole.
• Maxim Gorky, at the square named after him
• Alexander Pushkin (at the entrance to the Theatre of Opera and Ballet)
• 56.327974 44.001982 26 Prince George and Saint Simon of Suzdal , The Kremlin, St. Michael the Archangel Cathedral . Monument to the founders of the city of Prince Yuri II of Vladimir (also George Vsevolodovich) and Simeon of Suzdal ( updated Jun 2017 )

Religious [ edit ]

• Pechersky Ascencion Monastery , near Sennaya Square a couple miles east of downtown, halfway down the slope to Volga. With a cathedral and several churches surrounded by a restored stone wall, the monastery is the seat of the archbishops of Nizhny Novgorod.
• A big variety of other churches and convents.

Buy [ edit ]

Sleep [ edit ]

All hotels and hostels offer free Wi-Fi and many have computer terminals. Almost all accept credit cards. Hotels and hostels will usually provide a visa invitation and registration for an additional fee.

Connect [ edit ]

Phone [ edit ].

For information on purchasing a SIM card in Russia, see Russia#Connect .

Note that Nizhny Novgorod is in the Volga region zone, and SIM cards purchased elsewhere, such as in Moscow or Saint Petersburg , may be subject to roaming charges.

There are payphones in the streets; however, you can only buy phone-cards in the post offices and in a few newspaper kiosks.

Internet [ edit ]

Free WiFi is available in most hotels, shopping malls, university buildings, restaurants and cafes, the airport as well as several metro stations. There is also free public WiFi on B. Pokrovskaya street.

Cope [ edit ]

Navigation menu