Voyager 1 Endures Interstellar Travel on 68KB Across Six Vintage Computers
Voyager 1 remains in interstellar space, powered by six early-1970s flight computers (two each of CCS, FDS, and AACS) with a combined memory of about 68 kilobytes. The memory is not a single pool but partitioned among the three systems; a 2024 repair reworked code around a failed FDS chip without adding memory. The mission also includes an eight-track tape recorder capable of roughly 67 MB of buffering. Growing power constraints force most instruments offline, leaving only two active as of 2026, while Earth continues to receive data and issue commands. The article frames the tiny memory as a deliberate engineering choice for a narrowly focused spacecraft, not a shortfall by modern standards.