Voyager 1 mission: Coherent messages sent after 5 months!

Voyager 1, after sending back strange, unexpected messages since November, is now working again! NASA scientists and amateur space enthusiasts rejoice!

A glitch had been found in the messaging system that had the renowned spacecraft sending home messages that didn’t make sense for the last 5 months.

Voyager 1 & 2 are historic NASA spacecraft that were launched in 1977. Voyager 1 was meant to travel to and study Jupiter and Saturn, but after it completed its mission it made its way into interstellar space, the first of its kind.

The messages Voyager 1 had been sending back to Earth since November have been described as “incoherent,” and had NASA scientists wondering if the probe would recover.

As it turns out, the glitch was within a memory chip, discovered by a team at NASA’s California Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA commented, "When the mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on April 20, they saw that the modification worked: For the first time in five months, they have been able to check the health and status of the spacecraft.”

NASA hopes the mission continues as Voyager 1 travels into interstellar space, sending back messages and data for years to come.