Get the latest tech news

NASA Revives Voyager 1’s Dead Thrusters After 21 Years — Here’s How


NASA has successfully reactivated Voyager 1’s backup thrusters, unused since 2004, in what NASA is calling a "miracle save" for the 48 years old probe now in deep space.

So engineers went back to failed internal heaters and, just in case, attempted to revive a power switch that may been at fault 21 years ago. Despite the radio signal taking over 23 hours to travel from Earth to the spacecraft, the fix — a sequence of commands — worked from 16 billion miles away. Voyager 1 is now in interstellar space in the constellation Ophiuchus, in the southern sky beneath the Summer Triangle stars, as seen from the Northern Hemisphere.

Get the Android app

Or read this on r/technology

Read more on:

Photo of NASA

NASA

Photo of years

years

Photo of voyager

voyager

Related news:

News photo

First look at Kingdom Hearts 4 in three years suggests Mickey Mouse is playable

News photo

South Korea to Lift Deposit Insurance Cap First Time in 24 years

News photo

NASA Stennis Releases First Open-Source Software