Hi I’m Richard

I remember watching a movie on UK tv in the 70s or 80s about some US astronauts  who meet an alien species (I think they were) that worship a mysterious object.

Eventually we see the object which is actually a NASA space craft that has some missing letters giving the name of the aliens mystery object.

Example They call it. “Yager”. We can see it should be. “Voyager”.

The film may be Planet of the Apes or 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Thanks for any help.

Richard