We Probably Won’t Know When Voyager 1 Finally Finds Aliens

What’s the farthest from home you’ve ever been? For Voyager 1 the answer to that question is roughly 15 billion miles away, but the journey there is starting to take its toll on the aging spacecraft and it has now run into a computer issue.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 has been steadily streaking its way across the cosmos, beaming back data on everything it finds. Now, however, Ars Technica reports that a computer glitch means it is no longer able to transmit certain data. According to the site:

The computer glitch cropped up on November 14, and it affected Voyager 1’s ability to send back telemetry data, such as measurements from the spacecraft’s science instruments or basic engineering information about how the probe was doing. So, there’s no insight into key parameters regarding the craft’s propulsion, power, or control systems.

“It would be the biggest miracle if we get it back. We certainly haven’t given up,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in an interview with Ars. “There are other things we can try. But this is, by far, the most serious since I’ve been project manager.”

The Voyager 1 support team in California has been working overtime to find a fix for the issue, but as it stands engineers working on the probe remain in the dark. Now, all they know is that the craft will remain speeding away from the sun at a speed of roughly 38,000 mph until something, or someone, stops it.

No computer chip outage in the cosmos can stop this baby from spinning. Photo: Space Frontiers/Archive Photos (Getty Images)

The longest-lived spacecraft currently in service has had quite the journey since it launched on September 5, 1977. In the 47 years since it blasted into space on the top of a Titan IIIE rocket, it became the first man-made craft to cross into interstellar space.

Famously, the craft is carrying a gold record that contains recordings of greetings from around the world and the music of Chuck Berry. Thankfully, all of the computer chips on all of the planets in all of the galaxies could break and the record would still play on a good old fashioned turntable. So one day, the aliens will still be able to bop to “Johnny B Goode.”