--- title: "NASA Concerned as Voyager 1 Sending Back Incomprehensible Code" description: "  NASA's two Voyager spacecraft have spent almost half a century traveling through outer space. The probes, which launched less than a month apart in the summer of 1977, have survived a lot, from dwindling power supplies and grimy thrusters to near-fatal software glitches. Voyager 1, in particular, which is currently floating through space some 15 billion miles away, […]" date: "2024-03-06" modified: "2024-03-06" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-voyager-1-incomprehensible-code" categories: - "NASA" - "Space" tags: - "NASA" - "the digest" - "voyager 1" --- # NASA Concerned as Voyager 1 Sending Back Incomprehensible Code ![Scientists have become worried after NASA's Voyager 1 probe started sending nonsensical messages back to Earth.]() *\Image: NASA\* ## Senile Probe NASA's two Voyager spacecraft have spent almost half a century traveling through distant space. The probes, which launched less than a month apart in the summer of 1977, have survived a lot, from [dwindling power supplies]() and [grimy thrusters]() to [near-fatal software glitches](). Voyager 1, in particular, which is currently floating past the generally-defined edge of the solar system some 15 billion miles away, is looking [worse for wear]() these days. Most recently, scientists became worried after the lonely probe started sending nonsensical messages back to Earth — as if its senility was catching up with it. "It basically stopped talking to us in a coherent manner," Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd [told *NPR*](). "It's a serious problem." ## Nonsense Code Instead of beaming back binary code over billions of miles, Voyager 1 is sending 1s and 0s that just alternate. Efforts to reset the aging probe have failed so far — but that shouldn't come as a surprise, considering the technology dates back to the mid-1970s. "The button you press to open the door of your car, that has more compute power than the Voyager spacecrafts do," Dodd told *NPR*. "It's remarkable that they keep flying, and that they've flown for 46-plus years." Meanwhile, the team back on the ground is trying to "get into the heads of the original developers and figure out why they designed something the way they did," per Dodd, to find ways to fix the probe. Over the next months, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab will try a variety of different approaches to get Voyager 1 back to doing science. "We haven't been getting science data since this anomaly started," Caltech astronomer Stella Ocker told *NPR*, "and what that means is that we don't know what the environment that the spacecraft is traveling through looks like." The probes' plutonium reserves, which provide them with electricity, are also starting to run low, prompting their operators to take measures to preserve the dwindling power supplies. "My motto for a long time was 50 years or bust," astronomer Stamatios Krimigis, who has worked on the Voyager 1 mission from the very beginning, told *NPR*, "but we're sort of approaching that." **More on Voyager:** *[Things Are Looking Pretty Grim for Voyager 1]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()