The spacecraft could not perform a planned maneuver to calibrate its magnetic field instrument.
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NASA is currently trying to remotely recover the Voyager twin probes, launched in 1977, which today are at a distance of 18.5 billion kilometers from Earth.
On January 25, Voyager 2 turned off part of its instruments after detecting an error. The probe could not perform a planned maneuver, during which it had to make a 360-degree turn to calibrate its magnetic field instrument. This is done automatically to avoid more serious damage, inform The NASA.
Here’s the skinny: My twin went to do a roll to calibrate the onboard magnetometer, overdrew power and tripped software designed to automatically protect the spacecraft.Voyager 2’s power state is good and instruments are back on. Resuming science soon. https://t.co/4buDM32bappic.twitter.com/4T856Lpxjm
– NASA Voyager (@NASAVoyager) January 29, 2020
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As of January 28, Voyager engineers successfully shut down one of the high-power systems and turned the scientific instruments back on, but still have not resumed data collection. Now the team is reviewing the state of the rest of the spacecraft and working to bring it back to normal.
Probe repair is a difficult task, as it is found outside the solar system and the messages and instructions that are sent from Earth take at least 17 hours to arrive. As a result, the engineers had to wait about 34 hours to find out if their instructions had the desired effect on the spacecraft.
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