NASA Resurrects Voyager 1 Interstellar Spacecraft's Thrusters After 20 Years (space.com)
(Saturday May 17, 2025 @03:00AM (BeauHD)
from the back-from-the-dead dept.)
- Reference: 0177567533
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/05/17/0111201/nasa-resurrects-voyager-1-interstellar-spacecrafts-thrusters-after-20-years
- Source link: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/missions/nasa-resurrects-voyager-1-interstellar-spacecrafts-thrusters-after-20-years-these-thrusters-were-considered-dead
NASA engineers have [1]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."
[1] https://www.space.com/space-exploration/missions/nasa-resurrects-voyager-1-interstellar-spacecrafts-thrusters-after-20-years-these-thrusters-were-considered-dead
> 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."
[1] https://www.space.com/space-exploration/missions/nasa-resurrects-voyager-1-interstellar-spacecrafts-thrusters-after-20-years-these-thrusters-were-considered-dead
Confusion over backup vs primary (Score:2)
by evanh ( 627108 )
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.
Re: Confusion over backup vs primary (Score:1)
by flyingfsck ( 986395 )
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?).
Really amazing (Score:2)
by hcs_$reboot ( 1536101 )
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:2)
by rossdee ( 243626 )
What is really amazing is that they saw a response within 20 minutes...
They have achieved FTL communication.
Re: Imagine this... (Score:3)
I was gonna say they did it using chatgpt in an agile scrum...
Re: Imagine this... (Score:3)
Oh oh forgot the most important bit - in PYTHON!