• After months of trouble shooting, Voyager 1 is once again transmitting coherent data back to Earth.
• Despite being built in the 70s with what is now aging tech, Voyager 1 and 2 are the only spacecraft to have entered interstellar space.
• Aside from being valuable science tools, the Voyager probes also house the story of Earth and humanity on the Golden Record.

On 5th September 1977 the Voyager 1 probe was launched into space and 47 years later the spacecraft is still working its way through the inky void.

That journey has not been without its problems though as late last year Voyager 1 began sending ground teams nonsense. Since then, NASA has been working to return Voyager 1 to fighting form and last week it finally managed to do that.

As of last week, data being sent from Voyager 1 to Earth is normal and four instruments aboard the vessel are working as expected.

“While Voyager 1 is back to conducting science, additional minor work is needed to clean up the effects of the issue. Among other tasks, engineers will resynchronize timekeeping software in the spacecraft’s three onboard computers so they can execute commands at the right time. The team will also perform maintenance on the digital tape recorder, which records some data for the plasma wave instrument that is sent to Earth twice per year,” NASA reported.

Considering that not only did NASA have to conduct this repair remotely from 24 billion kilometres away, it had to do so on technology which is by all accounts, ancient.

However, the value of both Voyager 1 and 2 is immense considering they are the only spacecraft to have reached interstellar space. Originally intended to study Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, Voyager 1 and 2 have gone well above beyond what they were originally intended to do.

Both Voyagers are also packing The Golden Record. This phonograph record is meant to be representative of Earth and should an alien civilisation happen upon the record and figure out how to play it they will be able to hear humans talking, music, and the sounds of Earth including volcanoes, airplanes and a selection of weather noises.

Of course, a civilisation that finds this record will need to be able to understand concepts such as binary code, mathematics and science and as such, would need to be well advanced. NASA was kind enough to include the kit needed to play the record as a payload within Voyager.

Even if either Voyager sputters out and just ends up drifting through space, that record will likely outlast anything we create or keep safe on Earth. In fact, the Golden Record could outlive Earth itself.

With Voyager 1 now fully operational, NASA and it will likely hoover up as much data as possible before the icy grip of interstellar space makes operations impossible.