Communication with the Voyager 1 spacecraft, the most distant human creation from Earth, has been restored after five months, the American space agency (NASA) announced yesterday Monday.

Voyager 1, which is about 24 billion kilometers from Earth, had not sent back usable scientific and technical data about its condition since November, NASA explained. However, mission managers can send commands to the craft, which was launched 46 years ago and is still functioning normally.

Due to a problem with one of the computers responsible for formatting the scientific and technical data it transmits, Voyager 1 was sending unintelligible code back to Earth. However, NASA engineers seem to have managed to find a solution so that the data can be read.

Voyager 1 and 2 travel far from our solar system, carrying on copper-plated discs a collection of sounds and images of Earth.