POT Voyager 1 Spacecraft, launched in 1977 and now traveling through interstellar space at approximately 35,000 mph, has successfully reactivated a set of backup propellants previously considered unusable for almost two decades. This milestone occurs just before the land -based antenna is responsible for sending commands to Voyager 1 disconnects for extensive updates. The effort to restore these propellants was crucial because the main assembly currently in use shows signs of obstruction that could make them ineffective as this fall. The original study and announcement were Detailed by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Decades Problem Solution to ensure the future of Voyager 1
Voyager 1 is based on a combination of propellants to maintain precise orientation, allowing its antenna to remain pointed towards the earth and send critical scientific data back home. Among these, the rolls of the roll control the rotation of the spacecraft to maintain its aligned stars tracker. Primary roll propellers have been out of service since 2004 after the internal failures of the heater. At that time, the mission managers decided to trust only the support propellers, assuming that the mission would not continue for many more years.
“I think at that time, the team agreed to accept that the main roll propellers did not work, because they had a perfectly good backup,” said Kareem Badaruddin, Mission Manager of Voyager in JPL. “And, frankly, they probably did not believe that Voyagers continued for another 20 years.” Recent signs of waste accumulation in backup thrusters led engineers to visit the long latent primary complex. They discovered that a circuit disturbance could have turned the heater feed switch to the incorrect position, preventing the heaters from working. Upon putting the switch remotely, engineers aimed to put online to heater and propellants, providing a vital response option.
Overcome communication challenges in the midst of antenna updates
The reactivation effort was under an adjusted deadline. As of May 4, 2025, the DSS-43 antenna of the NASA space network in Canberra, Australia, the only one with sufficient power to communicate with Voyager 1, would be out of line for updates until the beginning of 2026. Although other antennas exist worldwide, none can send commands to Voyager 1 with the strength of the required signal.
“These antennas updates are important for future manned mole land landings, and also increase the communications capacity for our scientific missions in the deep space, some of which are based on the discoveries made by Voyager,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager Project Manager and director of the Interplanetary Network in JPL. “We have gone through a time of inactivity like this before, so we are preparing as much as we can.” Ensuring that the support propellants were operational before the antenna was out of line was essential to avoid risking mission control during this communication blackout.
A remarkable technical return sizes a new hope for voyager 1
On March 20, 2025, the Voyaager team remotely ordered the spacecraft that activates the propellers of the backup roll and restart its heaters. Due to the 23 -hour signal delay, the team had to wait anxiously. When telemetry showed that the heater temperature increased within 20 minutes of the command, the team knew that the operation had succeeded.
“It was such a glorious moment. The morale of the team was very high that day,” said Todd Barber, the propulsion leader of the mission in JPL. “These propellants were considered dead. And that was a legitimate conclusion. It’s just that one of our engineers had this idea that there were perhaps this other possible cause and was repairable. It was another miracle that except for Voyager.” This success not only increases the confidence in the longevity of the spacecraft, but also demonstrates the ingenuity and persistence of the mission team that manages one of the oldest space probes of humanity.
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