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NASA Resurrects Voyager 1 Interstellar Spacecraft's Thrusters After 20 Years (space.com) 64

Posted by BeauHD from the back-from-the-dead dept.
NASA engineers have successfully revived Voyager 1's backup thrusters, unused since 2004 and once considered defunct. Space.com reports: This remarkable feat became necessary because the spacecraft's primary thrusters, which control its orientation, have been degrading due to residue buildup. If its thrusters fail completely, Voyager 1 could lose its ability to point its antenna toward Earth, therefore cutting off communication with Earth after nearly 50 years of operation. To make matters more urgent, the team faced a strict deadline while trying to remedy the thruster situation. After May 4, the Earth-based antenna that sends commands to Voyager 1 -- and its twin, Voyager 2 -- was scheduled to go offline for months of upgrades. This would have made timely intervention impossible.

To solve the problem, NASA's team had to reactivate Voyager 1's long-dormant backup roll thrusters and then attempt to restart the heaters that keep them operational. If the star tracker drifted too far from its guide star during this process, the roll thrusters would automatically fire as a safety measure -- but if the heaters weren't back online by then, firing the thrusters could cause a dangerous pressure spike. So, the team had to precisely realign the star tracker before the thrusters engaged. Because Voyager is so incredibly distant, the team faced an agonizing 23-hour wait for the radio signal to travel all the way back to Earth. If the test had failed, Voyager might have already been in serious trouble. Then, on March 20, their patience was finally rewarded when Voyager responded perfectly to their commands. Within 20 minutes of receiving the signal, the team saw the thruster heaters' temperature soar -- a clear sign that the backup thrusters were firing as planned. "It was such a glorious moment. Team morale was very high that day," Todd Barber, the mission's propulsion lead at JPL, said in the statement. "These thrusters were considered dead. And that was a legitimate conclusion. It's just that one of our engineers had this insight that maybe there was this other possible cause, and it was fixable. It was yet another miracle save for Voyager."
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NASA Resurrects Voyager 1 Interstellar Spacecraft's Thrusters After 20 Years More

NASA Resurrects Voyager 1 Interstellar Spacecraft's Thrusters After 20 Years

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  • Imagine this... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 17, 2025 @03:15AM (#65382763)

    All working well after 50 years in the harshest possible environment and - look mama - no "AI" of any kind.

  • Confusion over backup vs primary (Score:4, Informative)

    by evanh ( 627108 ) on Saturday May 17, 2025 @03:19AM (#65382765)

    The other article I read on this said Voyager 1 had already been operating on its backup thrusters for the past 21 years, as the primary thrusters had been disabled due to heater failure in 2004.

    • These craft were purposely designed to last a very long time, since after half a century they still have not run out of thruster reaction mass (Xenon?).
      • Hydrazine. Efficient, reliable and very poisonous. Been the staple diet of spacecraft engines since Gemini. Anyone with an interest in the space program knows it. Of course nerds like to act like they own it, but then they talk crap and so we beat them up and shit on their faces.

  • Really amazing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hcs_$reboot ( 1536101 ) on Saturday May 17, 2025 @03:54AM (#65382791)
    V1 is about 25 billion km from Earth, a signal sent from Earth takes a day to reach the probe. Even more amazing is that at this distance V1 is still capable of receiving the signal. V1 and V2 were truly on par with the technologies of the era that sent men to the moon.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by rossdee ( 243626 )

      What is really amazing is that they saw a response within 20 minutes...
      They have achieved FTL communication.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        What is really amazing is that with the level of reading comprehension that you demonstrate, which strongly indicative of an IQ of less than 70, you've managed to get online in the late 90s.

    • Re:Really amazing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ZombieCatInABox ( 5665338 ) on Saturday May 17, 2025 @08:13AM (#65383005)

      Yes, and it is sad to think that what might finally put an end to these and other amazing missions is not the failure of the probes themselves, but budget cuts resulting from the lack of vision of an administration put in place by a disfunctional and failing democracy.

      You're supposed to stand on the shoulders of giants to see further ahead, not to better shit on their heads.

      • Really this. How did we end up in a situation where the only antenna to send commands to the probes was going to be down for maintenance for months? https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/... [nasa.gov] The question needs to be asked why there was not a 2nd antenna built as a backup for situations exactly like this. I get it, not sexy.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Viol8 ( 599362 )

          There probably was back in the day, but high power radio dishes arn't exactly thick on the ground and supporting a 50 year old mission probably isn't a high priority any more given how much other work they'll have.

          • Re:Really amazing (Score:4, Insightful)

            by stabiesoft ( 733417 ) on Saturday May 17, 2025 @03:26PM (#65383555) Homepage
            Except the DSN does way more than support voyager. This quote "DSN antennas are currently operating at capacity and are oversubscribed—" from https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-conten... [nasa.gov] is insightful. But as I said, not sexy so no one gives a fuck. I imagine most don't have a clue it takes this sort of infrastructure to connect to space objects. They probably imagine ATT has a tower up there, somewhere. Of course when Webb can't get observation data back, or artemis fails, or the mars rover's go black they might realize just how fucked they are.
        • You think this is the first time the deep space network has had upgrades/repairs done in which contact with Voyager 1 and 2 were lost? In 2020 there was a 7 month period that communications with the Voyager probes was not possible because of upgrades. Some of those dishes are very old and need to be replaced. Or they need to go offline for repairs. People in every spectrum of politics complain about how NASA money should be used for the military, feeding the poor, reparations, free education, etc. and so on

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Plugh ( 27537 )

        You're supposed to stand on the shoulders of giants to see further ahead, not to better shit on their heads.

        Did you come up with this? Because its spot-on and I plan to use it going forward

        • The "stand on the shoulder of giants to see further ahead" part is from Carl Sagan if I remember correctly. The "shit on their heads" part is from me, altough I'm pretty sure someone way wittier than me came up with it at some point before I did.

          Also, that shows where my brain sits on the intellectual scale compared to Sagan's. ;)

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dryeo ( 100693 )

            I thought it was Newton. DDG only shows your comment for that exact wording, but generally the saying goes back to Bernard of Chartres in the 12th century. The most famous version, "if I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." was by Newton.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] is interesting.

          • Thank you from me too, I'll be using it, most likely thusly:

            America 2025: standing on the shoulders of giants, just to shit on their heads.

    • Yea, about 23h one way, so round trip it about 46h close to two days. I wonder what is theoretical distance for V1/V2 signals to disappear into the background noise...(considering Shanon's channel model, modulation BW and transmitter powers).

    • a signal sent from Earth takes a day to reach the probe.

      I'm no expert but if radio waves travel close to c in space then that should be approaching a light day (~1/365th of a light year) away soon. Helps to put the distance in perspective.

  • It wasn't a miracle... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by imunfair ( 877689 ) on Saturday May 17, 2025 @09:40AM (#65383107) Homepage

    "It was such a glorious moment. Team morale was very high that day," Todd Barber, the mission's propulsion lead at JPL, said in the statement. "These thrusters were considered dead. And that was a legitimate conclusion. It's just that one of our engineers had this insight that maybe there was this other possible cause, and it was fixable. It was yet another miracle save for Voyager."

    Todd Barber should really give that engineer credit by name - dude deserves it for saving a 50 year old project with his idea. It wasn't a miracle, it was the engineer you decided not to name.

  • Because Voyager is so incredibly distant

    Only for the Earthlings.

  • Generations of brilliant engineers have been keeping this marvel of US technology alive for decades.

    But you know what's most amazing? That fucking Elon Musk hasn't fired everybody involved in keeping Voyager alive at NASA.

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