No—not in the sense that every science instrument is operating, and NASA’s official reports do not support a seven-month outage followed by a recent full recovery. Voyager 1 regained usable engineering data in April 2024, then usable science data from all four instruments that were operating at the time by June 2024. In April 2026, NASA/JPL reported shutting off one of those instruments to conserve power.
What “back online” means for Voyager 1
“Online” can describe different parts of the spacecraft’s communication and science work. During Voyager 1’s data-return problem, NASA/JPL could still send commands to the spacecraft, but it was not receiving readable science or engineering data. Those are distinct milestones: command reception, engineering telemetry that reports spacecraft health, and science measurements from instruments.
NASA/JPL’s timeline describes a five-month period without usable engineering-status data—not a seven-month period in which Voyager 1 was completely offline. The spacecraft continued receiving commands during the problem.
How NASA restored Voyager 1’s data
The problem: readable data stopped in November 2023
On November 14, 2023, Voyager 1 stopped sending readable science and engineering data to Earth. Controllers could tell that it was receiving commands and otherwise operating normally. NASA/JPL traced the issue to the flight data subsystem (FDS), which packages information for transmission. A failed memory chip had made some of the FDS code unavailable. NASA/JPL’s April 2024 update explains the fault and recovery.
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April 2024: engineering telemetry returned first
On April 18, 2024, engineers sent a command moving code used to package engineering data to a new location in FDS memory. The team received usable engineering-status data on April 20. NASA/JPL described that as the first usable health-and-status information in five months. It was an important recovery milestone, but science data still needed separate repairs.
June 2024: science data returned from four then-operating instruments
After a May 19 command and additional work, NASA/JPL reported on June 13, 2024, that Voyager 1 was returning usable science data from all four instruments then operating. “All four” means the instruments still in operation at that point—not every instrument the spacecraft carried. NASA/JPL’s June report describes that stage of the recovery.
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Which Voyager 1 instruments are operating now?
NASA’s instrument-status table, in its overview updated in 2026, lists the magnetometer and plasma-wave subsystem as on. It lists the cosmic-ray and low-energy charged-particle instruments as off to save power. On April 17, 2026, NASA/JPL reported that the team had shut off the Low-Energy Charged Particles experiment (LECP) to conserve power; LECP had operated almost without interruption since Voyager 1 launched in 1977. NASA’s Voyager 1 overview and status table provide the instrument statuses, while the April 17, 2026 report covers the LECP shutdown.
NASA/JPL mission manager Kareem Badaruddin described the decision this way: “While shutting down a science instrument is not anybody’s preference, it is the best option available.” The shutdown reflects power management; it does not undo the earlier recovery of usable data or mean the spacecraft stopped communicating.
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Why Voyager 1’s science data matter
Voyager 1 crossed out of the heliosphere on August 25, 2012, and began measuring the interstellar environment. The heliosphere is the bubble of particles and magnetic fields generated by the Sun. That crossing is a precise boundary claim: it does not mean the spacecraft had left every possible definition of the solar system. NASA’s mission overview describes the crossing and the spacecraft’s mission.
NASA/JPL’s April 2024 report said that, at the time, Voyager 1 was more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth and that a signal took about 22½ hours to travel each way. Those are figures reported in that dated update, not a live distance or signal-time reading.
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What the Golden Record has to do with Voyager 1
Voyager 1 also carries the Voyager Golden Record, a gold-plated copper disc intended to represent life and culture on Earth. NASA’s overview describes the disc as 30 centimeters in diameter and says it includes greetings in 55 languages. These details are part of the mission’s history; they do not indicate the spacecraft’s current operating status. NASA’s Voyager 1 overview includes information about the record.
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