The historic NASA Voyager 1 probe, the farthest man-made object from Earth, has been malfunctioning in deep space due to a critical memory error since November 14th, 2023. However, the issue has now been diagnosed and seems fixable!

Back in March, we reported that NASA was sending a “poke” to the Flight Data Subsystem to get a full readout of the probe’s functioning memory in hopes of fixing it. The poke worked but returned a scrambled readout that NASA had to decode before it could be of any value.

Here in April, it seems like that readout has finally borne fruit and identified the issue. According to NASA and a report from Ars Technica, “It may take weeks or months. Engineers are optimistic they can find a way for the FDS to operate normally without the unusable memory hardware, which would enable Voyager 1 to begin returning science and engineering data.”

In a new blog post, NASA disclosed that they suspect a single chip comprising roughly 3% of the FDS’ volatile memory was causing the problem. The “fix” to the issue seems to be finding a way to operate the FDS without relying on the corrupted memory, though the exact process remains uncertain. As of the time of writing, NASA’s Deep Space Network Now page still doesn’t know an incoming signal from Voyager 1— but we can expect to see it again in the coming months.

Overall, this optimistic turn in the saga of the lost Voyager probe is nice. It would have been perfectly understandable at 45 years old and a 1977 launch if it were simply unfixable after all this time. Instead, the ingenuity of the original engineers who launched the spacecraft still lives on and has caused a fatal memory error in deep space, an issue that seems fixable. Considering how frequently regular old RAM and storage fail in our modern era, seeing a direct ancestor still hold up so well after all this time is impressive.

For now, Voyager 1’s galactic odyssey will continue for years as soon as NASA finishes fixing its FDS error—or helping Voyager 1 “catch its breath,” so to speak. Who wouldn’t need a break after 45 years?