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Latest Content

• Introduced in 2018
• Residents of Mosaic City

Erice Utsumi

• Edit source
• View history
• 1.1 Background
• 1.2 Appearance
• 1.3 Personality
• 2.1.1 The Boy Among the Stars
• 2.1.2 Shinjuku the Nostalgic City
• 2.2 Fate/Grand Order
• 3.2 Dread Spirits
• 4 Development
• 5 References

Profile [ ]

Background [ ].

Erice is a 14-year-old girl who lives in the seaside town of Akihabara , part of Mosaic City . In a world in which each person has a Holy Grail in their hearts that can summon a Servant , she is the only person without one. [3] [1] She meets Voyager , the last Servant summoned in the world. [4] [1] Her best friend is Karin , who she has known since she was 9 and who calls her Eri-pie  (エリち, Erichi ? ). She doesn't have any other friends since people her age are rare. [5]

Erice's parents were a human man, Mr. Utsumi , and a Servant woman, Izanami . How a Servant was able to have a child has yet to be explained. When Erice was young she lived with her parents in Mosaic City's Shinjuku , until they died. After that she was raised by her grandmother Chitose Manazuru , but now lives on her own. [4] [5] She does not get along well with Chitose at all, and after moving out she turned an abandoned maid café in Akihabara into her apartment. [3]

Erice's job is killing Servants who step outside the rules established by the Holy Grail . She is known as the Grim Reaper  (死神, Shinigami ? ) and is a part of Mosaic City's Nightwatch . [4] [1] Her information brokers for this job are the Borgia Siblings , [6] and her boss is Caren Fujimura . [4]

For her whole life, evil spirits called Dread Spirits have inhabited Erice's body. [7] [1] While they give her the power to fight Servants, they also torment her. On nights after she's killed a Servant she can feel them writhing beneath her skin, clamoring with impatience, and she has to wrap herself in bandages while sleeping to prevent having her sheets soaked with blood. [7] If the Dread Spirits are not satisfied by Erice's killing, they open wounds across her body and cause external and internal bleeding. [8]

Erice is technically a middle schooler, but she does not often attend class, saying she has more important things to do but secretly because she just doesn't want to. She is still passing her academic evaluations and getting the credits she needs from extracurricular courses. However she does attend public history classes taught by Caren Fujimura that people of all ages can sign up for. [3]

Circe wonders if Erice's name is derived from Elysium WP  (エリュシオン, Eryushion ? ), a Greek afterlife for heroes. When Erice responds that her father liked French literature and didn't know Greek, Euclid adds that the French Élise  (エリゼ, Erize ? ) is synonymous with Elysium, such as with the Champs-Élysées WP  (エリセの園, Erise no En ? ). [5]

Appearance [ ]

As she lives in a resort town, she sometimes wears a silver swimsuit and black windbreaker while going around town. [3] [9] With Akihabara being converted into a coastal resort town, swimsuits are casual wear. [10]

Erice has a scar from when she was a child, her grandmother gave her a haircut but accidentally cut her ear with the scissors, making her bleed. [4]  

Personality [ ]

She's focused on efficiency. She likes functional and practical tools and clothes, preferring the simple but effective. Her favorite foods are the spicy and highly nutritional ones. She pretty much doesn't care about flavor. [1] She loves finding a quiet place to read books, and she will not tolerate the mockery of Heroic Spirits . [11] Her favorite place to relax is Bookshop Café Borges in Akihabara. [6] She does not like Mages (likely due to her experiences with her grandmother Chitose) and says she is just a " Magecraft user", but that's debatable. [1]

Erice greatly dislikes the Holy Grail Tournament , as she sees it as simply exploiting the great heroes of human history. [7] She dedicates all of her free time to checking books and documentaries related to Heroic Spirits. [1] She also loves going to museums. [12] While she does leverage this knowledge to ruthlessly erase them as the "Reaper", she also pays a deep respect and regard for their previous lives. The ones she esteems the most are the voyager and adventurer Heroic Spirits who discovered worlds unknown. [1] Of all explorers in history, she most admires Francis Drake . She thinks the rumors of Drake being a woman are impossible to believe, but also thinks that Drake's gender wouldn't matter anyway and being a woman wouldn't change what she did. [3] Erice laments how humans in her time have no desire to explore space anymore. [3]

Erice secretly harbors resentment toward Masters and Servants, since she is the only person in the world who does not have a Servant. She compares living in her world without a Servant to being like if you had poor eyesight but were told you were not allowed to wear glasses, or being told you had to travel somewhere on foot while everyone else got to use trains or buses. When she spoke with Voyager while bathing him on the night they first met, she broke down wishing he could have been her Servant. [3] After contracting with Voyager Erice becomes very protective of him and can't quite believe it really happened, referring to him with "My… He’s my… he’s a person like me’s… he’s my very own…" . [13] In Fate/Grand Order , she becomes angry and upset when she thinks Ritsuka Fujimaru stole Voyager from her. [14]

Erice has trouble trusting little boy Servants because of an encounter she had with Avenger Louis XVII when she was younger, who used her trust and friendship and turned it against her. [3]

Her best friend Karin is irreplaceable to her, and Erice feels that if one of them ever lost the other, that would be the end. Often Karin's emotions will flare which will lead to a fight with Erice, but neither girl ever lets it stay that way. [7]

To Erice, the idea of romance is an unexplored continent that lies beyond her understanding, and something that could be even more dangerous than a Servant gone insane if one was not careful. She is surprised when Karin starts flirting with Kuchime , as she thought that Karin felt the same way regarding romance. [7]

The French children's book The Little Prince is important to her, with her referring to it as a comforting presence like an old friend always by her side. [3] She owns both a pair of aviator goggles and a replica toy of the airplane which its author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry flew. [7] The model was a gift from her father. [15]

She thinks her teacher Caren Fujimura having her underwear exposed instead of wearing a skirt or pants is cool. She greatly admires Caren and refers to her as her master, having known her for as long as she could walk. [3] She takes after her teacher in her fashion and food tastes. [1]

Erice doesn't think highly of otaku culture, although in her world that is not nearly as common in Akihabara as it used to be. [7] When she entered a hobby shop to try and figure out what kind of things Voyager enjoys, she describes herself as almost sick of looking at all the merchandise and the figurines of buxom women. [9]

Erice is unable to cry. She can still feel sadness and fear and other emotions one normally associates with crying, but says that she "doesn't know how to cry." Even the incident with Louis XVII and the death of Caren didn't prompt tears. [16] When Erice was younger her grandmother accidentally clipped her ear while cutting her hair, but Erice didn't react at all and Chitose didn't realize what had happened until she saw the blood streaking down Erice's neck. After treating the wound Chitose told Erice that she has to tell her when it hurts. Young Erice only gave a silent nod in reply. [4]

Fate/Requiem [ ]

Five years before the events of Fate/Requiem , a nine-year-old Erice met Louis XVII and his Master at a therapy session which Erice was forced to attend. Erice befriended the two of them and would visit the Master's workshop, where he made things like children's school bags and shoes. Aware that Louis's Master was somewhat mentally disturbed, Erice took it upon herself to help him. Erice thought that, by giving support and with Louis on his side, the Master would be able to live in the drastically changed society "After" the Holy Grail War and help him get used to and blend into the lifestyle. [16]

Shortly after Erice befriended Louis and his Master, people began to go missing across Mosaic City without a trace, with their mutilated corpses found later in different locations. One day while visiting Louis's Master, Erice was told to no longer visit his workshop as he would be going somewhere far away, and let out a huge rant about the Holy Grail system and his absolute dissatisfaction about how the people's free will had been taken away due to the inclusion of Holy Grails and Servants into their lives. This was the last time Erice had a proper conversation with him. [16]

Some days later Erice ran into Louis on the street and learned that his Master had not in fact left the city. She returned to his workshop to find her Dread Spirit abilities activating automatically. The further into the Master's workshop Erice went the more dead bodies she found, accompanied by the sound of Louis humming. Erice's memories after that are blank, but she awoke to find that she had killed Louis's Master in self defense. [16]

Erice fell into Louis' Noble Phantasm La Grosse Tour , a recreation of his prison from life. Louis stood motionlessly and collapsed in her arms, fading away without his Master alive to supply Magical Energy . With his last words he called out for his mother . [16]

During this time, Karin was one of Louis's kidnapped victims, and one of the few who survived. It was due to this that she and Erice first met. Louis' death released Karin and saw Louis dying under Erice's arms. This was the first time they met and have been friends ever since. [16]

The Boy Among the Stars [ ]

As a defender of Akihabara who hunts Servants that break the rules of the Holy Grail , Erice recognized Kundry who arrived pursuing Hendrik van der Decken , a Servant whom she had decided was her lover, as a threat because if left alone she would begin to feed on the life energy of innocent people in order to sustain herself. A fight between Erice and Kundry deprived Kundry of her mount. [4]

Erice escorted Hendrik and his Master Ahasuerus out of Akihabara in an attempt to get Kundry to leave as well. Kundry had pursued them with her summoned Gremlin Familiars and fallen into despair when they left. Unwilling to leave the city herself, she pierced Erice with the Holy Spear and then fled. With the spear pierced through her body Erice fell into the water, and as her consciousness was fading a strange boy appeared and asked if she was worthy to be his Master . [4] Erice brings him to her home and starts looking out for him, while also trying to figure out his identity. She also starts to hope that he was her Servant, but no Command Spells ever appear on her hand. Caren Fujimura charges Erice with watching over the boy and hopefully figuring out his True Name . [3]

Soon after bringing the boy to her home, Erice receives a visit from her grandmother Chitose Manazuru and Chitose's Servant Lucius . Chitose speaks to Erice about having Erice stop her job as Nightwatch for a few months, to which Erice is vehemently opposed. But when she looks to Lucius for help, he only responds with a pained smile. [7]

While out in town one day, Erice and Karin meet Kuchime , a street musician. [7] Erice later befriends Koharu F Riedenflaus and Galahad Alter , the rising stars of the Holy Grail Tournament . [6] Despite her distaste for the tournament she, Karin, Kijyo Koyo , and the boy attend it to see Galahad and Koharu's match. [9] The tournament then gets interrupted by Nzambi and her zombies, causing chaos in the Colosseum. Erice fights off several zombified Servants, and clashes with Nzambi. [17]

After Nzambi's attack, Erice finds her mentor Caren Fujimura being killed by Anubis and his companion . They are chased off by Chitose, but before he leaves Anubis tells Erice that she belongs on their side. [18] As Caren dies she tells Erice that the Holy Grail War is not yet over, and if Erice wished to fight, she must go to Fuyuki . [19]

In the aftermath of Nzambi's attack Chitose demands that Erice hand the boy over to her, and when Erice refuses Chitose has Lucius attack him. When Galahad deflects Lucius's attack, Chitose leaves without a word. [20]

After Chitose leaves, Command Spells form on Erice's hand and the boy once again asks her if she is his Master. As the two of them make their contract, Erice declares his True Name of Voyager with tears in her eyes, and Voyager pledges that together they will end the Holy Grail War and destroy the world. [20]

Shinjuku the Nostalgic City [ ]

When Erice tells Caren Himuro that she intends to go to Fuyuki, Himuro advises that she visit the Yushima Tenmangū to find a replacement Nightwatch while she's gone. Erice thinks she means the chief priest, but Himuro actually means the chief priest's daughter, Rurihime . [21]

Before traveling to Fuyuki, Erice stops in her hometown, Mosaic City's Shinjuku. She says she needs something that Caren Fujimura left behind: the Shroud of Magdalene . Karin playfully accuses her of trying to find an excuse not to leave. In Shinjuku's red light district the group runs into Kuchime again, only for him to be detained by a woman named Makki using the very Shroud that Erice is searching for. Makki being given the Shroud of Magdalene had been Himuro's request and approved by Chitose, and so Erice's request to Himuro to take it for herself is denied. [22]

With their trip to Shinjuku yielding no results, Erice and her group meaninglessly wander the city with Erice in a funk. At a fruit parlor in front of Shinjuku Central Station, they run into Circe and Euclid , the latter of whom somehow knows who Voyager is and that he was summoned exactly twelve days ago. Euclid and Circe explain to Erice's group that ever since Voyager was summoned, no new Servants have been able to be summoned in Mosaic City, whether that be for newborn babies receiving their partners, or for people whose Servants died in Nzambi's attack and need replacements. Voyager is the Final Servant, the last Servant summoned in the world. [22]

Fate/Grand Order [ ]

Abilities [ ].

Erice is a miracle child of a Human male and a female Servant, an entity known as a "Quasi-Servant"  (準サーヴァント, Jun-Saavanto ? , also translated as "Semi-Servant"). [1] Currently it is unknown how a Servant was capable of having a child. Makki reassures that even if mixed, she is still completely human. According to Makki, due to the unique nature of her body, if Erice leaves Mosaic City she will die within days.

After making her contract with Voyager, Erice finally received Command Spells of her own. Currently she does not know if hers are gone forever on use like her grandmother Chitose's, or if they will regenerate over time like everyone else's in Mosaic City. [5] As of her battle with Ammit , she has used two Command Spells.

Erice's red lock of hair is a Mystic Code with apps loaded onto it, such as one that lets her try to translate Berserker Servants' roaring and body language (including Kijyo Koyo ). [7] By touching that red lock she can use her Magic Circuits to "send calls" and communicate remotely by magically causing vibrations in her inner ear, primarily with her mentor Caren Fujimura . It's possible for her to use this to add a video feed too, or indeed to simulate any of the five senses, but she doesn't want to open her privacy that much. [4]

Erice battling Ammit .

Since her childhood, Erice has been trained in self-defense and killing techniques by Lucius , her grandmother's Servant. [7] Nzambi states that Erice is a Spellcaster . [8] She prepares magical charms ahead of time before a fight, trinkets from the Akihabara Department Store that she had poured her Magical Energy into. [7] The charms augment her body, such as improved eyesight and cardiopulmonary functions. She also keeps a barrier on her skin that helps defend against Servants' superhuman strength. Both the charms and the barrier disappear if she is weakened enough. [4]

Erice's most common form of attack is a magical bullet called Freischütz: Magic Bullet  ( 魔弾 ( フライシュッツ ) Madan ( Furaishuttsu ) ? ). [4] [23] Freischütz is an upgraded form of Gandr that reproduces the legend of Der Freischütz WP for a higher performance as a curse. [23] It is an imitation of the magical bullets wielded by the Demon Hunter Samiel of Bohemian legend. [1] Erice fires seven bullets, the first of which is just a normal Gandr but each one gets progressively stronger. The core of the curse is the seventh bullet which, as in the legend of Der Freischütz, takes the enemy to the grave along with her. Erice can avoid the curse's effect on her by simply reloading her bullets, resetting their power back to a basic Gandr. Only one time has she been forced to use the seventh bullet, and it resulted in her being in a near-death state for a month. [23]

Dread Spirits [ ]

Erice's black blood in Fate/Grand Order .

Erice was born without a Holy Grail, [3] instead her body is inhabited by a number of Evil Spirits known as Dread Spirits  (邪霊, Jarei ? ). [1] Her blood is poisonous to Servants and making contact with it is dangerous for them. [17] [1] Her grandmother Chitose Manazuru taught her how to control these spirits and use them as weapons. [17] The Evil Spirits that lurk within her blood are especially effective as a weapon against Spiritual Bodies . [1] Using their power causes wounds to open all over Erice's body and coagulate her blood that she can shape into various weapons called branches , taking various shapes such as an axe, sword, or whip, among others. [17] [8] The forms she uses most are Hallebarde  (アルバード ? ) the battle axe, Vail  (ベイル ? ) the hatchet, then Flail  (フレイル ? ) the multi-nunchuk, and Räte  (レーテ ? ) the net. [2]

She can use this ability to rip out a Servant's Spiritual Core from their Saint Graph , killing them. The Spiritual Core blackens and becomes one with Erice's branch, and Servants killed in this way do not return to the Throne of Heroes , so if a new copy of them is summoned they will not remember the experiences of the version that was killed. [1] [17] Nzambi initially mistakes it for Imaginary Numbers Magecraft. [17] The drawback of using her spirits is that if they are not satisfied, wounds will open all over her body and cause external and internal bleeding. [8] [1]

Erice describes her Dread Spirits as the souls of the dead, steeped in hatred and loathing. Nothing more or less than evil in its purest form, misbegotten creatures that the Throne of Heroes spat upon. [17] In Fate/Grand Order , Marie Antoinette wonders if they are similar to the black mud of the Holy Grail : pure human evil, contagious to the touch. [24]

Two of the Spirits, in particular, taught Erice how to survive the curse within her and control the Dread Spirits. They taught her to become "mother" and to give all the Evil Spirits the name Erlkönig: Demon King  ( 魔王 ( エルケーニッヒ ) , Maō ( Erukēnihhi ) ? ). The name comes from the Erlking WP of German folklore, a fairy who kills with a single touch. [17] [1] Erlkönig will automatically activate the moment a threat is detected, even if Erice herself is unaware of it. [16] [1] She can easily detect the servant girl and Anubis thanks to that ability. Nzambi is amazed that even with a disguise it still couldn't completely fool Erice.

Makki theorizes that the reason why Voyager cannot enter spiritual form is due to Erice's nature as a "Grim Reaper" and the evil spirits residing inside her.

She does not want Voyager to go near her when fighting because Erlkönig will also end up harming him, due to its poisonous nature to Servants, so it is highly dangerous for them to stick close together during combat. However, she can use a Command Spell to allow Voyager to resist the blood's poison for a short time, such as when she needed him to fly her to Ammit. [25]

Development [ ]

Erice was created by Meteo Hoshizora and her character design was by NOCO .

References [ ]

• ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 Fate/Grand Order - Profile of Erice Utsumi - Translated by Comun
• ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Fate/Grand Order - Utsumi Erice (Avenger) lines - Translated by Comun
• ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 Fate/Requiem Volume 1: The Boy Among the Stars - Chapter 1
• ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 Fate/Requiem Volume 1: The Boy Among the Stars - Prologue
• ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Fate/Requiem Volume 2: Shinjuku the Nostalgic City - Chapter 11
• ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Fate/Requiem Volume 1: The Boy Among the Stars - Chapter 3
• ↑ 7.00 7.01 7.02 7.03 7.04 7.05 7.06 7.07 7.08 7.09 7.10 7.11 Fate/Requiem Volume 1: The Boy Among the Stars - Chapter 2
• ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Fate/Requiem Volume 1: The Boy Among the Stars - Chapter 6
• ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Fate/Requiem Volume 1: The Boy Among the Stars - Chapter 4
• ↑ Fate/Grand Order - Utsumi Erice (Avenger) Profile - Translated by Comun
• ↑ Fate/Grand Order - Utsumi Erice's voice lines ( Translated by Comun )
• ↑ Fate/Grand Order - Utsumi Erice (Avenger) Valentine's scene - Translated by Comun
• ↑ Fate/Requiem Volume 2: Shinjuku the Nostalgic City - Chapter 10
• ↑ Fate/Grand Order x Fate/Requiem Collaboration Event: Board Game Apocalypse - Section 2: The Lost "Reaper"
• ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 16.5 16.6 Fate/Requiem Volume 2: Shinjuku the Nostalgic City - Chapter 9
• ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 17.5 17.6 17.7 Fate/Requiem Volume 1: The Boy Among the Stars - Chapter 5
• ↑ Fate/Requiem Volume 1: The Boy Among the Stars - Chapter 7
• ↑ Fate/Requiem Volume 1: The Boy Among the Stars - Chapter 8
• ↑ 20.0 20.1 Fate/Requiem Volume 1: The Boy Among the Stars - Chapter 8
• ↑ 22.0 22.1 Fate/Requiem Volume 2: Shinjuku the Nostalgic City - Chapter 11
• ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 Fate/Requiem Volume 2: Shinjuku the Nostalgic City - Chapter 14
• ↑ Fate/Grand Order x Fate/Requiem Collaboration Event: Board Game Apocalypse - Third Game: Sower of the Seeds of Havoc
• ↑ Fate/Requiem Volume 2: Shinjuku the Nostalgic City - Chapter 15
• 1 Aoko Aozaki
• 2 Soujuurou Shizuki
• 3 Artoria Pendragon (Saber)

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Stephen Clark, Ars Technica

How NASA Repaired Voyager 1 From 15 Billion Miles Away

Engineers have partially restored a 1970s-era computer on NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft after five months of long-distance troubleshooting , building confidence that humanity's first interstellar probe can eventually resume normal operations.

Several dozen scientists and engineers gathered Saturday in a conference room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or connected virtually, to wait for a new signal from Voyager 1. The ground team sent a command up to Voyager 1 on Thursday to recode part of the memory of the spacecraft's Flight Data Subsystem (FDS) , one of the probe's three computers.

“In the minutes leading up to when we were going to see a signal, you could have heard a pin drop in the room,” said Linda Spilker, project scientist for NASA's two Voyager spacecraft at JPL. “It was quiet. People were looking very serious. They were looking at their computer screens. Each of the subsystem (engineers) had pages up that they were looking at, to watch as they would be populated.”

Finally, a Breakthrough

Launched nearly 47 years ago, Voyager 1 is flying on an outbound trajectory more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, and it takes 22.5 hours for a radio signal to cover that distance at the speed of light. This means it takes nearly two days for engineers to uplink a command to Voyager 1 and get a response.

In November, Voyager 1 suddenly stopped transmitting its usual stream of data containing information about the spacecraft's health and measurements from its scientific instruments. Instead, the spacecraft's datastream was entirely unintelligible. Because the telemetry was unreadable, experts on the ground could not easily tell what went wrong. They hypothesized the source of the problem might be in the memory bank of the FDS.

There was a breakthrough last month when engineers sent up a novel command to “poke” Voyager 1's FDS to send back a readout of its memory. This readout allowed engineers to pinpoint the location of the problem in the FDS memory . The FDS is responsible for packaging engineering and scientific data for transmission to Earth.

After a few weeks, NASA was ready to uplink a solution to get the FDS to resume packing engineering data. This datastream includes information on the status of the spacecraft—things like power levels and temperature measurements. This command went up to Voyager 1 through one of NASA's large Deep Space Network antennae on Thursday.

Then, the wait for a response. Spilker, who started working on Voyager right out of college in 1977, was in the room when Voyager 1's signal reached Earth on Saturday.

“When the time came to get the signal, we could clearly see all of a sudden, boom, we had data, and there were tears and smiles and high fives,” she told Ars. “Everyone was very happy and very excited to see that, hey, we're back in communication again with Voyager 1. We're going to see the status of the spacecraft, the health of the spacecraft, for the first time in five months.”

Matt Jancer

David Nield

Throughout the five months of troubleshooting, Voyager's ground team continued to receive signals indicating the spacecraft was still alive. But until Saturday, they lacked insight into specific details about the status of Voyager 1.

“It’s pretty much just the way we left it,” Spilker said. “We're still in the initial phases of analyzing all of the channels and looking at their trends. Some of the temperatures went down a little bit with this period of time that's gone on, but we're pretty much seeing everything we had hoped for. And that's always good news.”

Relocating Code

Through their investigation, Voyager's ground team discovered that a single chip responsible for storing a portion of the FDS memory had stopped working, probably due to either a cosmic ray hit or a failure of aging hardware. This affected some of the computer's software code.

“That took out a section of memory,” Spilker said. “What they have to do is relocate that code into a different portion of the memory, and then make sure that anything that uses those codes, those subroutines, know to go to the new location of memory, for access and to run it.”

Only about 3 percent of the FDS memory was corrupted by the bad chip, so engineers needed to transplant that code into another part of the memory bank. But no single location is large enough to hold the section of code in its entirety, NASA said.

So the Voyager team divided the code into sections for storage in different places in the FDS. This wasn't just a copy-and-paste job. Engineers needed to modify some of the code to make sure it will all work together. “Any references to the location of that code in other parts of the FDS memory needed to be updated as well,” NASA said in a statement.

Newer NASA missions have hardware and software simulators on the ground, where engineers can test new procedures to make sure they do no harm when they uplink commands to the real spacecraft. Due to its age, Voyager doesn't have any ground simulators, and much of the mission's original design documentation remains in paper form and hasn't been digitized.

“It was really eyes-only to look at the code,” Spilker said. “So we had to triple check. Everybody was looking through and making sure we had all of the links coming together.”

This was just the first step in restoring Voyager 1 to full functionality. “We were pretty sure it would work, but until it actually happened, we didn't know 100 percent for sure,” Spilker said.

“The reason we didn’t do everything in one step is that there was a very limited amount of memory we could find quickly, so we prioritized one data mode (the engineering data mode), and relocated only the code to restore that mode,” said Jeff Mellstrom, a JPL engineer who leads the Voyager 1 “tiger team” tasked with overcoming this problem.

“The next step, to relocate the remaining three actively used science data modes, is essentially the same,” Mellstrom said in a written response to Ars. “The main difference is the available memory constraint is now even tighter. We have ideas where we could relocate the code, but we haven’t yet fully assessed the options or made a decision. These are the first steps we will start this week.”

It could take “a few weeks” to go through the sections of code responsible for packaging Voyager 1's science data in the FDS, Spilker said.

That will be the key payoff, Spilker said. Voyager 1 and its twin spacecraft, Voyager 2, are the only operating probes flying in the interstellar medium, the diffuse gas between the stars. Their prime missions are long over. Voyager 1 flew by Jupiter and Saturn in 1979 and 1980, then got a gravitational boost toward the outer edge of the Solar System. Voyager 2 took a slower trajectory and encountered Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

For the past couple of decades, NASA has devoted Voyager's instruments to studying cosmic rays, the magnetic field, and the plasma environment in interstellar space. They're not taking pictures anymore. Both probes have traveled beyond the heliopause, where the flow of particles emanating from the Sun runs into the interstellar medium.

But any scientific data collected by Voyager 1 since November 14 has been lost. The spacecraft does not have the ability to store science data onboard. Voyager 2 has remained operational during the outage of Voyager 1.

Scientists are eager to get their hands on Voyager 1's science data again. “With the results we got on Saturday, we have new confidence that we can put together the pieces we need to now get back the science data,” Spilker said.

“One thing I'm particularly excited about—there's this feature in the Voyager 1 data. We nicknamed it Pressure Front 2,” Spilker said. “Pressure Front 2 is a jump in both the density of the plasma around the spacecraft and the magnetic field. It's lasted for three-and-a-half years.”

“We'd like to see, is this still there?” she continued. “It's different from what we've seen in the past, and we're trying to figure out, is it some influence coming from the Sun, or is it actually something coming from interstellar space that's creating this feature? So we'd like to see it again, get more data, and be able to study it more carefully.”

This story originally appeared on Ars Technica .

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NASA's Voyager 1 sending readable data back to Earth for 1st time in 5 months

The problem stemmed from a corrupted chip in one of the spacecraft's computers.

After more than five months without contact, NASA has finally reconnected with Voyager 1, the farthest spacecraft from Earth.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) said Voyager 1 had not been sending readable data back to Earth since Nov. 14, 2023, despite the spacecraft still receiving mission controller commands.

In December 2023, the JPL announced the problem was with one of Voyager 1's onboard computers called the flight data subsystem (FDS). Engineers attempted to restart the computer, but the problem persisted, NASA said.

MORE: NASA asks for help studying Uranus and Neptune as it prepares to capture new images

However, the JPL announced this week that Voyager 1 had resumed sending engineering updates to Earth.

Engineers pinpointed the problem earlier this month, NASA said: A chip responsible for storing part of the computer's memory had become corrupted, making the data unreadable. The team was unable to repair the chip and decided the affected code needed to be stored elsewhere in the FDS memory, but no single location was large enough to do so, the JPL said in a release Monday.

The team "devised a plan to divide the affected code into sections and store those sections in different places in the FDS," the release read. "To make this plan work, they also needed to adjust those code sections to ensure, for example, that they all still function as a whole."

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The code that packages Voyager 1's engineering data was the first to be sent to its new location on April 18. The JPL said it takes 22.5 hours for a radio signal to reach Voyager 1 and another 22.5 hours for the signal to come back to Earth. When the team heard from Voyager 1 on April 20, they knew the fix was a success, the JPL said.

"Hi, it's me. - V1," the X account for Voyager 1 posted on Monday afternoon.

Over the next few weeks, more portions of the FDS software will be relocated and the team will work to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again, the JPL said.

MORE: NASA says it's revising the Mars Sample Return mission due to cost, long wait time

Voyager 1 was launched in September 1977 under the Voyager program to study the farther planets of the solar system and interstellar space. Voyager 1 entered interstellar space in 2012 becoming the first man-made object to exit the solar system.

Meanwhile, its twin spacecraft, Voyager 2, continues to "operate normally," according to the JPL. It reached interstellar space in 2018 and is the second-farthest spacecraft from Earth.

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NASA's Voyager 1 Is Finally Making Sense After Months of Transmitting Gibberish

Jpl engineers pinpointed the cause behind the anomaly and came up with a clever plan to rescue the iconic mission..

The Voyager 1 spacecraft returned usable data for the first time in more than five months, giving hope for the 46-year-old mission to finally be able to resume its normal operations.

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NASA’s favorite interstellar probe transmitted data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems to mission control on Saturday, the space agency announced . That’s great news for the mission, and the next step is hopefully for Voyager 1 to begin returning science data again.

The last time Voyager 1 sent readable science and engineering data back to Earth was on November 14, 2023. Afterwards, the spacecraft was receiving commands, but talking back to Earth in unusable gibberish . The storied spacecraft is exploring the outermost edge of the Sun’s domain, combining its observations with data from newer missions to get a better understanding of how the heliosphere interacts with interstellar space.

Related article: Voyager Probes Spot Previously Unknown Phenomenon in Deep Space

In March, the team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) pinpointed the cause behind Voyager 1's nonsensical data : a single chip responsible for storing part of the affected portion of the spacecraft’s flight data system (FDS) memory.

FDS collects data from Voyager’s science instruments, as well as engineering data about the health of the spacecraft, and combines them into a single package that’s transmitted to Earth in binary code. Since the glitch, however, the mission has been sending data in a repeating pattern of ones and zeroes.

Voyager 1 is 15.14 billion miles away, which makes repairing it that much more complicated. The engineers at JPL knew that they couldn’t fix the chip, but they could try to place the affected code elsewhere in the FDS memory.

Instead of selecting a single location to hold all of the affected code, the team came up with a plan to divide it into sections and store those sections in different places in the FDS. On April 18, the mission team singled out the code responsible for packaging the spacecraft’s engineering data and sent it to its new location.

Two days later, the engineers heard back from the Voyager 1 spacecraft. It takes around 22.5 hours to send a radio signal to the spacecraft, and another 22.5 hours to receive one back.

Over the coming weeks, the Voyager 1 team will relocate the other affected portions of the software to different parts of the FDS memory, including portions related to the mission’s science data.

Voyager 1 launched in 1977, less than a month after its twin probe, Voyager 2, began its own journey to space. The probe ventured into interstellar space in August 2012, becoming the first spacecraft to leave the heliosphere. The twin spacecraft are the longest-running missions in history, and aside from a few communication glitches, the pair are doing pretty well for their age.

For more spaceflight in your life, follow us on X and bookmark Gizmodo’s dedicated Spaceflight page .

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St. Philaret of Moscow: Daily Prayer and Prayer of the Prisoner

St. Philaret of Moscow

St. Philaret left a voluminous inheritance of what can be truly called patristic works. He also composed prayers, 1 one of which has become a part of many people’s morning prayers . It is a prayer not for what we want, but for what God wills—that He would always be before us, working in us His Holy will. 2

Morning Prayer of Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow

O Lord, I do not know what to ask of Thee. Thou alone knowest what I need. Thou lovest me more than I know how to love myself. O Father, grant Thy servant what I myself do not know how to ask. I do not dare to ask a cross of Thee, nor consolation; I only stand before Thee with my heart open; Thou seest the needs that I myself do not know. Look, and work in me according to Thy mercy; smite and heal me, cast me down and raise me up! I am reverent and silent before Thy holy will and ways that are unfathomable to me. I offer myself as a sacrifice to Thee; teach me to pray. Do Thou Thyself pray in me. Amen.

Another prayer attributed to the illustrious hierarch was written for prisoners , who although they have been incarcerated for crimes committed, especially need help from the Lord to bear the difficulty of their penitentiary life. But aren’t we are all seemingly prisoners of circumstances that surround us—family troubles, job loss or difficulty, rocky relationships, poverty, and any other thing that makes us feel like there is no way out? But we can pray to God with these words, that He would give us comfort and the strength to endure everything for the sake of cleansing our own sins, which have most likely brought us to these situations.

Prayer of the Prisoner

O my Lord God and Savior, blessed be Thy holy name!

Thanksgiving and praise be to Thee O Lord, for all the blessings I have received from Thee in this life. Sorrow and sickness have overtaken me, and I call upon Thy name. Reproach has fallen upon me. Thou hast laid me in the pit of hades, in the darkness and house of the dead. I sorrow for this, and I understand that I have this sorrow because I have sinned before Thee, and for my sins have these afflictions come upon me. For Thy righteous ones were not downcast, and even in prisons called out to Thee, and rejoiced in sufferings.

For if Thous shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, O Lord, who shall stand? For there is no man that hath not sinned. But Thou, O Lord, dost bear the sins of the world and cleansest through repentance. I believe, for thou hast not turned even me, a sinner, away from Thy Face. Thy Only Begotten Son didst pour out His blood for the whole world. I believe that He can cleanse even me from my sins, and desires this.

Therefore with David I say: I will confess mine iniquities before the Lord against myself. And Thou forgavest the ungodliness of my heart. I fear the judge and judgment of man, but even more do I fear Thy irrevocable judgment and eternal condemnation. For unrighteousness has risen up against me; I make bold to pray to Thee with David’s words: Hearken O Lord unto my righteousness, and hear my judgment, and deliver me by Thy righteousness.

For although I have committed unrighteousness, heal my unrighteousness by Thy mercy. Do not allow my heart to incline to deceitful words, to hiding the truth, and false justification. Help me to understand and to hate my unrighteousness, to love righteousness, and in truth surround my soul with comfort. Ease the burden of my afflictions. Endure also me, the condemned, that I may endure with patience for the sake of cleansing my sins and for the sake of Thy merciful, righteous judgment.

For if shame has covered me before certain people, may I endure it with humility; may I receive They mercy, O Lord, and may I not be put to shame before the face of the world at Thy Dread [Last] Judgment.

I come to Thee woeful and sorrowful; deprive me not of Thy spiritual consolation. I come to Thee darkened; show me the light of hope for salvation. I fall down before Thee in exhaustion; raise me up and confirm me in Thy grace.

And above all grant me the desire and help me, O Lord, in everything to do Thy will; that in peace I may glorify Thy holy name, of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

1   The translations of these prayers given in this post are our own (not official).

2   When searching in Google for the “Prayer of St. Philaret of Moscow”, one seems always to find not this prayer, but the prayer of the Optina Elders: “O Lord, grant me to greet the coming day in peace, help me in all things to rely upon Your holy will. In every hour of the day reveal Your will to me. Bless my dealings with all who surround me. Teach me to treat all that comes to me throughout the day with peace of soul and with firm conviction that Your will governs all. In all my words and deeds, guide my thoughts and feelings. In unforeseen events, let me not forget that all are sent by You. Teach me to act firmly and wisely, without embittering and embarrasssing others. Give me strength to bear the fatigue of the coming day with all that it shall bring. Direct my will, teach me to pray. And, Yourself, pray in me. Amen.” These prayers are very similar.

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NASA’s Voyager Team Focuses on Software Patch, Thrusters

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is depicted in this artist’s concept traveling through interstellar space, or the space between stars, which it entered in 2012. Traveling on a different trajectory, its twin, Voyager 2, entered interstellar space in 2018.

The efforts should help extend the lifetimes of the agency’s interstellar explorers.

Engineers for NASA’s Voyager mission are taking steps to help make sure both spacecraft, launched in 1977, continue to explore interstellar space for years to come.

One effort addresses fuel residue that seems to be accumulating inside narrow tubes in some of the thrusters on the spacecraft. The thrusters are used to keep each spacecraft’s antenna pointed at Earth. This type of buildup has been observed in a handful of other spacecraft.

The team is also uploading a software patch to prevent the recurrence of a glitch that arose on Voyager 1 last year. Engineers resolved the glitch , and the patch is intended to prevent the issue from occurring again in Voyager 1 or arising in its twin, Voyager 2.

Thruster Buildup

The thrusters on Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are primarily used to keep the spacecraft antennas pointed at Earth in order to communicate. Spacecraft can rotate in three directions – up and down, to the left and right, and around the central axis, like a wheel. As they do this, the thrusters automatically fire and reorient the spacecraft to keep their antennas pointed at Earth.

Propellant flows to the thrusters via fuel lines and then passes through smaller lines inside the thrusters called propellant inlet tubes that are 25 times narrower than the external fuel lines. Each thruster firing adds tiny amounts of propellant residue, leading to gradual buildup of material over decades. In some of the propellant inlet tubes, the buildup is becoming significant. To slow that buildup, the mission has begun letting the two spacecraft rotate slightly farther in each direction before firing the thrusters. This will reduce the frequency of thruster firings.

The adjustments to the thruster rotation range were made by commands sent in September and October, and they allow the spacecraft to move almost 1 degree farther in each direction than in the past. The mission is also performing fewer, longer firings, which will further reduce the total number of firings done on each spacecraft.

The adjustments have been carefully devised to ensure minimal impact on the mission. While more rotating by the spacecraft could mean bits of science data are occasionally lost – akin to being on a phone call where the person on the other end cuts out occasionally – the team concluded the plan will enable the Voyagers to return more data over time.

Get the Latest JPL News

Engineers can’t know for sure when the thruster propellant inlet tubes will become completely clogged, but they expect that with these precautions, that won’t happen for at least five more years, possibly much longer. The team can take additional steps in the coming years to extend the lifetime of the thrusters even more.

“This far into the mission, the engineering team is being faced with a lot of challenges for which we just don’t have a playbook,” said Linda Spilker, project scientist for the mission as NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “But they continue to come up with creative solutions.”

Patching Things Up

In 2022, the onboard computer that orients the Voyager 1 spacecraft with Earth began to send back garbled status reports, despite otherwise continuing to operate normally. It took mission engineers months to pinpoint the issue . The attitude articulation and control system (AACS) was misdirecting commands, writing them into the computer memory instead of carrying them out. One of those missed commands wound up garbling the AACS status report before it could reach engineers on the ground.

The team determined the AACS had entered into an incorrect mode; however, they couldn’t determine the cause and thus aren’t sure if the issue could arise again. The software patch should prevent that.

“This patch is like an insurance policy that will protect us in the future and help us keep these probes going as long as possible,” said JPL’s Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager. “These are the only spacecraft to ever operate in interstellar space, so the data they’re sending back is uniquely valuable to our understanding of our local universe.”

Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have traveled more than 15 billion and 12 billion miles from Earth, respectively. At those distances, the patch instructions will take over 18 hours to travel to the spacecraft. Because of the spacecraft’s age and the communication lag time, there’s some risk the patch could overwrite essential code or have other unintended effects on the spacecraft. To reduce those risks, the team has spent months writing, reviewing, and checking the code. As an added safety precaution, Voyager 2 will receive the patch first and serve as a testbed for its twin. Voyager 1 is farther from Earth than any other spacecraft, making its data more valuable.

The team will upload the patch and do a readout of the AACS memory to make sure it’s in the right place on Friday, Oct. 20. If no immediate issues arise, the team will issue a command on Saturday, Oct. 28, to see if the patch is operating as it should.

More About the Mission

The Voyager mission was originally scheduled to last only four years, sending both probes past Saturn and Jupiter. NASA extended the mission so that Voyager 2 could visit Uranus and Neptune; it is still the only spacecraft ever to have encountered the ice giants. In 1990, NASA extended the mission again, this time with the goal of sending the probes outside the heliosphere, a protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun. Voyager 1 reached the boundary in 2012, while Voyager 2 (traveling slower and in a different direction than its twin) reached it in 2018.

A division of Caltech in Pasadena, JPL built and operates the Voyager spacecraft. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/voyager

News Media Contact

Calla Cofield

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

626-808-2469

[email protected]

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News from the Press Site: Boeing Starliner gets go ahead for Crew Flight Test, communication reestablished with Voyager 1

In this week’s edition of News from the Press Site, Spaceflight Now’s Will Robinson-Smith is joined by Tariq Malik, editor-in-chief of Space.com, and Passant Robie, space reporter for Gizmodo. The panel discusses the arrival of the NASA astronauts who will be the first to fly onboard Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, the reestablishment of contact with the Voyager 1 spacecraft, the 300th Falcon 9 booster landing for SpaceX and much more.

News from the Press Site is a weekly video podcast where we cover the big space news of the week with some of the journalists covering it on the daily.

Tariq Malik, Space.com:

• The 2024 solar eclipse was a teachable moment in more ways than one https://www.space.com/total-solar-eclipse-2024-teachable-moment-suny-potsdam-university
• Chasing the 2024 solar eclipse means dorm life for some New York spectators (including me) https://www.space.com/solar-eclipse-2024-dorm-life-suny-potsdam-new-york
• Russian Soyuz rocket suffers rare last-minute abort during launch of 3 astronauts to ISS (video) https://www.space.com/soyuz-rocket-launch-abort-expedition71-astronauts

Passant Robie, Gizmodo:

• Hubble Telescope Put Into Dreaded Safe Mode Due to Ongoing Glitch https://gizmodo.com/hubble-telescope-put-into-dreaded-safe-mode-due-to-ongo-1851438846
• Russia’s UN Veto Fuels More Tension With the US Over Nuclear Weapons in Space https://gizmodo.com/russia-un-veto-tensions-nuclear-weapons-space-1851438358
• Chinese Astronauts Performed Emergency Space Station Repairs Following Debris Impact https://gizmodo.com/chinese-astronauts-space-station-repairs-debris-impact-1851434957
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China launches a new crew to its space station, advancing toward lunar mission

John Ruwitch

A Long March rocket carrying a crew of Chinese astronauts in a Shenzhou-18 spaceship lifts off at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China on Thursday. Andy Wong/AP hide caption

A Long March rocket carrying a crew of Chinese astronauts in a Shenzhou-18 spaceship lifts off at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China on Thursday.

JIUQUAN SATELLITE LAUNCH CENTER, China – China launched three astronauts into space on Thursday night, bound for the country's homemade space station where they will live and work for half a year.

The Shenzhou-18 launch is the latest in a series rotating taikonauts, as China calls its space explorers (the Chinese word for "space" is taikong ), through multi-month missions in orbit to conduct experiments and amass experience for eventual trips to the Moon and beyond.

The crewed missions are just one facet of an ambitious and fast-moving space program that international experts and officials worry could pose a threat to U.S. space superiority and military effectiveness on Earth.

NASA astronaut Tom Stafford, famed for U.S.-Soviet orbital handshake, has died at 93

Thursday's launch coincides with a visit to China by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who made stops in Shanghai and Beijing to advocate for a level playing field for U.S. businesses and press Beijing to stop supporting Russia's war effort against Ukraine.

From left, astronauts for China's Shenzhou-18 space mission Li Guangsu, Ye Guangfu and Li Cong wave during a departure ceremony before boarding a bus to take them to the Shenzhou-18 spacecraft at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi desert in northwest China on Thursday. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

From left, astronauts for China's Shenzhou-18 space mission Li Guangsu, Ye Guangfu and Li Cong wave during a departure ceremony before boarding a bus to take them to the Shenzhou-18 spacecraft at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi desert in northwest China on Thursday.

At one minute before 9 p.m., Shenzhou-18's Long March 2F rocket lit up the night and tore skyward to cheers from onlookers at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in remote western China.

A day earlier, China unveiled the crew — commander Ye Guangfu, Li Cong and Li Guangsu. All are former fighter pilots, all born in the 1980s.

Third time's the charm: SpaceX's massive Starship reaches space

"I am thoroughly looking forward to the coming half-year of life in space. Embarking on this space expedition for the motherland is my greatest happiness," Li Guangsu told reporters the day before the flight.

The three taikonauts were not the only ones headed to the space station on Thursday. Several zebrafish were also slated to be part of the mission, according to the China Manned Space Agency. The crew will conduct more than 90 scientific experiments in orbit, including one that will try to establish a closed aquatic ecosystem with the minnows and a type of algae.

Well, hello, Voyager 1! The venerable spacecraft is once again making sense

"We hope that through this research we can understand the interaction between these plants and animals in space, so that in the future when we understand it we can establish a large-scale ecosystem with animals, plants and microorganisms ... and create a systematic loop and possibly a closed system so that people can live in space for long periods," said Zhang Wei, a professor of technology and engineering at the Center for Space Utilization at the Chinese Academy of Science.

The Shenzhou-18 crew will also add protective shielding to exposed pipes, wires and other systems on the outside of the space station, officials said. The previous crew discovered damage from space debris to a solar panel wire that CMSA says affected the power supply. They conducted space walks to fix it, but future damage from space debris is possible.

China's space program has come a long way in a relatively short period time, according to international experts. That has raised persistent concerns in the U.S., most recently from the commander of the U.S. Space Command, Gen. Stephen Whiting.

On Wednesday, Whiting told reporters that China had tripled its number of intelligence gathering satellites over the past six years, and he called the country's space advances "cause for concern."

Whiting said China's strides in space were helping it improve the effectiveness of its military on Earth. He also noted that China is developing a range of counter-space weapons — devices that can disable or disrupt other countries' space assets.

Indeed, China's space program is an outgrowth of the People's Liberation Army, with the crewed portion still directly under the military. Even many of the firms that comprise a growing commercial space sector have links to state-owned enterprises in the military industrial complex.

Still, some experts say calling competition between China and the United States a new space race is of debatable value.

"To me, it looks more like a very long endurance, no-end-in-sight, marathon. And the marathon we are running here in space is really against ourselves," says Svetla Ben-Itzhak, a space security expert at Johns Hopkins University.

She notes that while China has been making fast strides, the U.S. retains clear advantages in space — including operating close to 70% of all space assets, including satellites.

That leadership position, coupled with a growing dependence on space and a lack of transparency on the part of China, has fueled a security dilemma, she says.

U.S. law bans NASA from using government money to cooperate with China, and Beijing has been excluded from the International Space Station — part of the reason it developed its own space station.

China's endemic secrecy was apparent during a government-organized visit to the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center for a small group of journalists.

Foreign reporters were housed in a town three hours by bus from the space center, while Chinese journalists stayed onsite. Trip details and schedules were withheld until the last minute. And plainclothes guards at the launch center kept a close eye on reporters to prevent them from wandering more than a few yards away from approved stops — or, at one location, aiming cameras at a camouflaged truck.

Yang Liwei, China's first astronaut, who went into space in 2003 aboard Shenzhou-5, says China would welcome more cooperation with the United States.

"China has always wanted to cooperate with the United States," he says. "In space exploration, and especially crewed space exploration, international cooperation is a major trend...[and] it's a common need of humanity."

Zhang Wei, the scientist, says China will keep plowing ahead regardless of worries about its program from abroad.

"That's not important. We just need to do our best. We don't really need to worry about whatever others think of us," he says.

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