Using a modified historic radio telescope, amateurs were able to receive signals from Voyager 1. This was made possible by technical problems with the probe.
Using the historic Duingeloo radio telescope, amateur astronomers were able to briefly receive signals from NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft near the village of the same name in the Netherlands. This was made possible by an additional antenna attached to the telescope and an alternative transmitter that Voyager used to temporarily communicate with Earth.
Due to the distance of Voyager 1, the signal was very weak. Voyager 1 is about 25 billion kilometers from Earth, which is almost five times farther than the dwarf planet Pluto. According to the German Aerospace Center, the distance to this point is about 5 billion kilometers.
Additional antenna installed
To achieve the required reception, the astronomers attached another antenna to the radio telescope. This antenna is actually designed for lower frequencies than Voyager 1. At these higher frequencies, the antenna network has less reflections, making it especially difficult to receive weak radio signals.
To find the very weak carrier signal among the noise, the team used Voyager 1’s orbit predictions. This allowed them to compensate for the Doppler shift in frequency caused by the motion of Earth and Voyager 1. At times, the signal could be observed live in the telescope’s observation room. The group published some photos on its website.
Voyager 1 technical problems
All this was only possible because the spacecraft had a temporary technical problem. In mid-October, NASA gave the command to Voyager to turn on its onboard heaters. After that, the probe stopped responding on its usual frequencies in the X-band. Later, another signal was found in the S-band, reserved for low-power transmitters. At the end of November, NASA released the following statement: The spacecraft detected an increase in power consumption by the heater and automatically switched to the other transmitter.
Voyager 1 has been in space since 1977 and is powered by three radionuclide batteries that generate about 4 watts less each year. The system was therefore gradually shut down over the years, and many of the onboard measuring instruments stopped providing data for long periods of time. Nevertheless, the energy reserves are so small that even a small difference in the forecast of power consumption can have a significant impact. Unable to communicate Amateur astronomers at Doingelow must have received signals between mid-October and the end of November. However, they reveal that they never had the chance to transmit their own signals to Voyager 1. NASA uses antennas that are significantly larger than those of the old radio telescope. Nevertheless, this could be one of the last highlights in the history of the old radio telescope. Construction was completed in 1956, and at the time, the single-dish radio telescope, with a diameter of 25 meters, was the largest in the world. It has been out of use since 2000 and has been a Dutch industrial monument since 2009. After restoration in 2012, the CA Muller Foundation for Radio Astronomy worked with the owner to put it back into operation.
