NASA's Voyager 1 Revives Backup Thrusters Before Command Pause Science
a year ago
- #Voyager Mission
- #Space Exploration
- #NASA
- NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft successfully revived backup thrusters that were deemed unusable since 2004.
- The mission team aimed to fix the thrusters before the Deep Space Network antenna (DSS-43) went offline for upgrades, preventing command transmission.
- Primary thrusters are experiencing clogging due to residue buildup, risking failure by fall 2025, necessitating backup thruster activation.
- Engineers suspected a power circuit issue caused the 2004 thruster failure and successfully reactivated the heaters to restore functionality.
- The team had a limited window before DSS-43's downtime (May 2025–February 2026) to test and confirm thruster reactivation.
- On March 20, 2025, the test succeeded, with thruster heaters warming up as intended, ensuring continued mission operations.
- Voyager 1 and 2 are the only spacecraft in interstellar space, providing unique data beyond the heliosphere.