NASA patches Voyager 1 from interstellar space with a remote software rewrite

In late 2023 Voyager 1 began returning unreadable data from interstellar space due to a corrupted memory chip in its flight data subsystem. Engineers rewired the affected software by splitting it into small sections and relocating them to intact memory, effectively rehouseing the code to run around the damaged area. The fix was transmitted across more than 24 billion kilometres and, after about 45 hours, the patch was confirmed to work. The memory issue affected roughly 3% of the subsystem, and the repair did not add power or fuel, but bought time for the oldest spacecraft to continue reporting from a distant region—keeping it alive into the 2030s.