In late 2023, Voyager 1 began sending unreadable data from interstellar space. NASA engineers eventually traced the fault to corrupted memory in one of the probe’s computers, rewrote part of its 46-year-old software, transmitted the fix across more than 24 billion kilometres, and waited roughly 45 hours for confirmation that the patch had worked.

A single failed memory chip corrupted about 3% of Voyager 1's flight data subsystem in November 2023. Engineers relocated the affected 1970s code around the damage, sent the fix across 24 billion km, and got readable data back on 20 April 2024 after a 45-hour round trip. The post In late 2023, Voyager 1 began sending unreadable data from interstellar space. NASA engineers eventually traced the fault to corrupted memory in one of the probe’s computers, rewrote part of its 46-year-old software, tr