NASA Manages to Get Voyager 1 to Switch On Its Inactive Engines for the First Time in Decades, Ensuring the Spacecraft Lives to See Another Day

Engineers working on NASA’s Voyager probes can’t catch a break. After six months of sending meaningless data, Voyager 1 returned to regular operation through a software update. Recently, however, it faced a much more mechanical problem.

In short. The Voyager 1 spacecraft, launched by NASA 47 years ago, has managed to switch on a set of thrusters it hasn’t used in decades. The thrusters were the space agency’s solution to correcting the spacecraft’s orientation after the commonly used engines jammed.

Clogged tubes. After half a century of the spacecraft wandering through space, silica, a product of an aging rubber membrane in the fuel tank, clogged the fuel lines of Voyager 1’s engines.

The original diameter of the pipes was 0.01 inches, but the clogging reduced it to 0.0015 inches, half the size of a human hair.

The mission was at risk again. There’s nothing in interstellar space to slow the spacecraft down. Still, it must keep its antennas pointed at Earth to receive commands and send scientific data.

Mission controllers feared losing communication with Voyager 1 if they didn’t do something to correct its orientation. As in 2002 and 2018, it was time to change the thruster.

A power problem. The solution wasn’t simply to use different thrusters. The backup thrusters were cold because there was no power to heat them. Switching them on without caution could have damaged them.

Two aging spacecraft. By successfully powering up the inactive engines of Voyager 1, NASA has extended the life of this spacecraft so that it can continue to provide information about interstellar space. The sun has little influence in this region, and what scientists know on Earth is because of this probe.

Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, are old. However, if NASA continues to carefully manage their power and monitor the performance of their engines, it will be able to extend their lives much longer than expected.

Image | NASA

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