🚀 Voyager 1 isn’t done yet — not even close 🧠🔧📡
NASA just pulled off another miracle save:
🛰️ The spacecraft’s primary roll thrusters, offline since 2004, were believed permanently dead
🧯 With backup thrusters at risk of failure, JPL engineers gambled on a high-stakes heater reset
🔥 If wrong, it could’ve caused a small onboard explosion
📡 If right, it would restore control — 15.6 billion miles from Earth
They were right. The thrusters fired. Voyager 1 can still hold its course.
This wasn’t a reboot. It was old-school problem-solving, deep systems knowledge, and the audacity to trust an idea that might just work.
The most distant human object is still flying — because a team believed it could.
#Voyager1 #NASA #Space #Engineering #Resilience #DeepSpace
theregister.com/2025/05/15/voy…
NASA keeps ancient Voyager 1 spacecraft alive with Hail Mary thruster fix
: Failure could've triggered a small explosionBrandon Vigliarolo (The Register)
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Ludovic :Firefox: :FreeBSD:
in reply to Brian Greenberg • • •☮ ♥ ♬ 🧑💻
in reply to Ludovic :Firefox: :FreeBSD: • • •@usul
In 2024 the techniques used to fix hardware failure: “a critical breakthrough in March offered a glimmer of hope. By transmitting a carefully crafted “poke” command, engineers were able to elicit a response from Voyager 1 in the form of a memory readout. This readout acts as a digital snapshot of the FDS’s internal state, potentially holding the key to diagnosing the problem. By meticulously comparing it to an earlier readout from before the malfunction, engineers hope to pinpoint the exact nature of the glitch.
Early signs suggest a corrupted memory unit might be the culprit. This would explain the garbled data transmissions received since November.
Joseph Westlake, director of NASA’s heliophysics division, believes a software workaround could be the answer. The plan involves a delicate maneuver – shifting a few hundred “words” (each word being two bytes) of software within the flight computer’s memory. This intricat
... Show more...@usul
In 2024 the techniques used to fix hardware failure: “a critical breakthrough in March offered a glimmer of hope. By transmitting a carefully crafted “poke” command, engineers were able to elicit a response from Voyager 1 in the form of a memory readout. This readout acts as a digital snapshot of the FDS’s internal state, potentially holding the key to diagnosing the problem. By meticulously comparing it to an earlier readout from before the malfunction, engineers hope to pinpoint the exact nature of the glitch.
Early signs suggest a corrupted memory unit might be the culprit. This would explain the garbled data transmissions received since November.
Joseph Westlake, director of NASA’s heliophysics division, believes a software workaround could be the answer. The plan involves a delicate maneuver – shifting a few hundred “words” (each word being two bytes) of software within the flight computer’s memory. This intricate operation, akin to brain surgery on a machine millions of miles away, would effectively bypass the corrupted memory section.”
<nasaspacenews.com/2024/03/nasa…>
NASA’s Promising Path to Overcoming Voyager 1 Computer Hurdles | NASA Space News
nasaspacenews (Jegtheme)Sable Shade🇦🇺🍉🗝🇵🇸🇺🇦
in reply to Brian Greenberg • • •Ancient, tho😁
I think there are those at the museums and under the earth and beyond it and voyager that may take umbrage at this
Shalien
in reply to Brian Greenberg • • •☢️Waschbär☢️ (He/Him) 🏳️🌈
in reply to Brian Greenberg • • •And what the team constantly pulls off is stuff worthy of movies, simply legendary.
Raglan Niall
in reply to Brian Greenberg • • •Arthur van der Harg
in reply to Raglan Niall • • •@Niall Indeed: if Musk had been around in the 1970’s, the Voyagers would be at Alpha Centauri by now!
Anyway, why would you need to send out probes when you can just ask Grok what’s out there?
Lance
in reply to Brian Greenberg • • •The ingenuity that goes into keeping an aging, unfathomably distant, spacecraft running decades past its projected lifespan is awe-inspiring.
Meanwhile, here on planet Earth, people are advised to scrap millions of high-powered, perfectly serviceable PCs — all based on the whims of a software company that elevates profit above people and the environment.
Voyager 1 is proof that it doesn't have to be this way.
Ann Effes
in reply to Brian Greenberg • • •Titia Schuurman
in reply to Brian Greenberg • •newscientist.com/article/24819…
Brian Greenberg likes this.