by Dan Moren

February 21, 2024 11:20 AM PT

The lonely death of Voyager 1

I know the space beat is usually Jason’s bailiwick, but I really enjoyed this lovely piece about Voyager 1, which seems to be on its last legs after nearly half a century, in which it has traveled further from Earth than any other spacecraft. And there’s a tech angle too:

In December 2023, Voyager started sending back gibberish instead of data. A software glitch, though perhaps caused by an underlying hardware problem; a cosmic ray strike, or a side effect of the low temperatures, or just aging equipment randomly causing some bits to flip.

The problem was, the gibberish was coming from the flight direction software — something like an operating system. And no copy of that operating system remained in existence on Earth.

I always find it a little bit awe-inspiring to see these spacecraft—designed to be, in essence, disposable—that keep on doing their job for years past their expiration date; Opportunity on Mars is another good example. Would that all technology was designed in such a fashion.

Godspeed, Voyager. Maybe we’ll see you in about 250 years.¹

—Linked by Dan Moren