Since May, the engineering team with NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft had been trying to solve a mystery. The 45-year-old spacecraft seemed to be in excellent condition, receiving and executing commands from Earth, along with gathering and returning science data - but the probe's attitude articulation and control system (AACS) was sending garbled information about its health and activities to mission controllers.
The AACS controls the spacecraft's orientation and keeps Voyager 1's high-gain antenna pointed precisely at Earth, enabling it to send data home. Though all signs suggested that the AACS was still working, the telemetry data was invalid. For instance, the data appeared to be randomly generated or did not reflect any possible state the AACS could be in.
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