Voyager 1 revived after 20 years of being "thought dead"

(Dan Tri) - A spectacular engineering feat has just been performed on the edge of the Solar System, when NASA engineers successfully restored the backup engine of the Voyager 1 probe that had been "hibernating" since 2004.

Technical "miracle" at the edge of the Solar System

Voyager 1 was launched in September 1977 and is still exploring the farthest edges of the Solar System (Photo: NASA).

Voyager 1, launched in 1977, is now the farthest man-made object in history, traveling more than 24 billion kilometers away from us. However, after nearly 50 years of non-stop operation, the main propulsion system, which keeps the spacecraft's antenna pointed at Earth, has begun to seriously deteriorate.

Faced with an emergency, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) made a risky decision: reactivating the backup engines that had been dormant for 20 years.

This is especially urgent because a planned ground-based antenna upgrade will halt command transmissions to Voyager 1 for months after May 4, making any intervention impossible.

After careful calculations, the engineering team restarted the relevant heaters, which are critical to getting the propulsion engine back up and running.

The entire procedure had to be carried out under a signal delay of nearly 23 hours, due to the great distance between Earth and Voyager 1. Any error could cause the spacecraft to become permanently disoriented and lose contact with Earth.

The received feedback signal confirmed, the temperature of the heater spiked, indicating that the backup thrusters were operating again.

“It was a moment of triumph,” said Todd Barber, the mission’s engine lead. “We thought these engines were dead. But one of our engineers suspected there was still a chance to fix it. And he was right.”

The mission lasted nearly half a century and continues.

Illustration of the orbits of the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes (Image: NASA/JPL).

Voyager 1, along with its twin Voyager 2, have not only completed their original mission of exploring planets outside the Solar System, but are also continuing to explore interstellar space, a region of space that no other human-made device has "set foot" in.

However, the challenge grew as the power from the spacecraft's radioisotope generators gradually decreased over time, forcing NASA to gradually shut down scientific instruments to maintain minimal operation.

Previously, Voyager 1 also suffered from a chip issue that caused data to be incorrectly encoded. Fortunately, the problem was fixed with a software update.

Despite their nearly 50-year lifespan and technological limitations, the Voyager twins continue to bring back invaluable data from the edge of space—knowledge that no other probe has been able to provide.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/khoa-hoc/hoi-sinh-tau-voyager-1-sau-20-nam-tuong-nhu-da-chet-20250516082738543.htm