Earth to Voyager 1: Spacecraft back in contact after months

John Adderley joins Bongani Bingwa for the world view.

Listen to the interview in the audio below.

For several months, humanity’s most distant object has been sending nothing but gibberish back home.

However, the 46-year-old Nasa spacecraft is now sending readable data from 24 billion km away according to Nasa.

ALSO READ:

Significant opportunities could arise from UK-Africa space partnership – report

Booming space economy expected to be worth $1.8 TRILLION by 2035

Because of the ships distance, it takes 22.5 hours for a radio signal to travel either way.

Thanks to work from the engineers at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the ship is now sending useable data on the health and status of its onboard engineering systems.

The next step is to have the ship return science data again.

“They had kind of given up on communications between voyager 1 and Earth but its back in contact.” 

- John Adderley, World View Correspondent

Adderley says there is limited time to get information from the Voyager as it is due to run out of power in 18 months.

“It is not going to be the end of its adventure. When the batteries do eventually run out, Voyager 1 is going to continue wandering the Milky Way, potentially for eternity, in silence.”

- John Adderley, World View Correspondent

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the interview.