2024-04-14 12:09:00
Normal communication has been impossible since November of last year.
NASA “Confirmed semiconductor chip damage”
The cause was identified, but the power soon ran out.
Permanent shutdown possible next year
On September 5, 1977, a 48-meter-tall large rocket, ‘Titan 3E’, spewed flames and soared into the air at Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida, USA.
The launch scene at the time, which can still be easily found on the Internet, is actually not much different from any other rocket takeoff. But if you know it, its meaning is special. This is because the cargo loaded on the rocket was the space probe ‘Voyager 1’.
Voyager 1 is currently the most distant man-made object from Earth. At this very moment, we are flying through space, breaking records. It is about 24 billion km away from the Earth, which is 162 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun. This is the result of flying in space for a whopping 47 years.
Perhaps due to its long service life, Voyager 1 has frequently experienced major and minor breakdowns in recent years. Each time, NASA performed remote maintenance, such as changing software, and resumed observations, but the failure that occurred in November last year was different. It was difficult to fix. There has been no normal communication between Voyager 1 and Earth Mission Control for five months already.
However, earlier this month, NASA discovered the cause of the malfunction in Voyager 1. The problem was that the ‘chip’, or semiconductor chunk, inside the Voyager 1 computer was damaged. However, even if this problem is resolved, it is difficult for Voyager 1 to have a ‘long life’. This is because Voyager 1’s power supply, which is equivalent to food, will soon run out.
■ Identification of semiconductor chip damage
According to NASA, Voyager 1 has been sending meaningless signals of repeated 0s and 1s toward the Earth observatory since November 14 last year. In fact, its function as a probe was disabled.
NASA, which analyzed the cause of this incident from various angles, first discovered that a problem occurred in Voyager 1’s internal computer last month. The problems were with devices called ‘Flight Data System (FDS)’ and ‘Telemetry Translation Unit (TMU)’.
FDS is responsible for organizing space observation information collected by Voyager 1. The TMU is responsible for receiving observation information from the FDS, putting it on radio waves, and then transmitting it to Earth. If FDS is a logistics center that collects and organizes products ordered by customers, TMU is a delivery vehicle heading to the customer’s home.
However, NASA scientists analyzed and found that FDS and TMU were not communicating with each other. This made it impossible to send observation information to Earth. But until recently, I didn’t know why this happened. NASA then conducted additional analysis and identified a likely cause early this month. It was immediately discovered that about 3% of the memory, or information storage, in the FDS was damaged.
NASA explained in official data, “It appears that one of the chips that makes up the FDS memory is not working.” A chip is a small, thin piece of semiconductor material measuring about a few centimeters in length and width.
■ Even if the problem is resolved, the lifespan ‘counts down’
Why did the chip break? NASA has two possibilities in mind. One is that the chip may have been exposed to powerful energetic particles, such as radiation from space. Energetic particles are a significant cause of harm to electronic devices.
Another possibility is increased mechanical fatigue due to ‘long years’. It has been 47 years since Voyager 1 went into space. It is difficult to find a machine with such a long lifespan. There are cases where military equipment remains in active service for more than 60 years after its commissioning, but this is possible because maintenance and repairs are carried out simultaneously.
Voyager 1 has never been directly repaired by humans since its launch in 1977. This was unavoidable because it was not a satellite orbiting the Earth, but a probe observing distant space. When a technical problem arose, only measures such as improving the software by sending radio waves from the Earth observatory were taken. This failure must also be dealt with in the same way.
“It may take weeks or months, but we will find a way to bypass the unusable chip and get Voyager 1 back to normal operation,” NASA said.
However, even if this malfunction is resolved, Voyager 1’s ‘death’, or permanent shutdown, will not be far away.
This is because the lifespan of the radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), the energy source mounted on the fuselage, is not long.
RTG converts heat from radioactive materials into electricity. But this fever is gradually cooling down. Then you can’t even generate electricity. Because Voyager 1 is so far from the sun, it was equipped with an RTG to generate electricity without solar panels.
NASA said, “There is a possibility that equipment that collects scientific information from space will be completely turned off due to lack of energy as early as next year.” Even if all scientific equipment is turned off, Voyager 1 will continue its space flight while maintaining its existing speed because there are no obstacles such as air in space.
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