It’s now 36 years and some months since the Voyager was launched to venture into the deep reaches of our solar system and the cosmic space beyond. To date, Voyager 1 continues to make contact with NASA via the Deep Space Network and also is issued with routine commands to execute and return data for scientists to analyze.
Voyager 1 may be 11.6 billion miles away in interstellar space, but its computer systems are not as cutting-edge as you would typically believe given this is a spacecraft making space explorations. As what may come as a surprise, it is equipped with a 40 KB memory, which doesn’t come anywhere near your iPhone 5’s which has 16 GB memory. This is about 240,000 times that of the voyager.
Why so little computing power you may ask? The Voyager 1 was developed way back in the day (1970s) an age where scientists worked with tools such as paper, pencil and chalkboards, plus their own mathematical intellect. However little the computing power, this spacecraft is hailed by NASA as one of its most successful missions.
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