Voyager 1, the space probe that has been wandering the cosmos like a determined retiree on an endless cruise, has finally picked up the phone after months of giving NASA the kind of cold shoulder usually reserved for teenagers and family reunions. After an agonizing radio silence that began in November 2023 due to what we can only assume was a very bad day in its onboard computer system, Voyager 1 is speaking clearly again, or at least clearly enough for scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to exhale audibly.
The issue stemmed from a corrupted memory chip in the spacecraft’s flight data system, which resulted in what engineers affectionately refer to as “unreadable gibberish” being sent back to Earth. Naturally, this did little for scientific progress but provided an excellent opportunity for engineers to engage in long-distance debugging from roughly 15 billion miles away, a feat equivalent to trying to fix your old VCR using smoke signals from another continent.
Miraculously, on April 20th, technical staff managed to coax Voyager 1 back into coherence, recovering key engineering data and likely high-fiving each other in silent, nerdy triumph. This marks the first time in five months that the probe has sent back data about its systems, which for a spacecraft launched in 1977 is roughly equivalent to waking up from a long nap and remembering where you put your glasses.
NASA engineers managed this feat by instructing Voyager to use a different section of memory not affected by the corruption, revealing the kind of resourcefulness one typically reserves for last-minute holiday shopping. The probe is still unable to send scientific data, but rest assured NASA is working on that too, presumably with the same mixture of determination and espresso.
One can only hope the Universe has not noticed that Voyager 1 is now back online and ready to eavesdrop once more from the most antisocial corner of interstellar space.
Even after 46 years, Voyager 1 still knows how to ghost us… and then respond just in time to avoid being unfriended by NASA.