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Voyager 1 Goes Silent Before Historic Light
Gizmodo • • science
Key Points:
- NASA’s Voyager 1 briefly lost communication in mid-October, with radio signals undetected during two attempts 24 hours apart, but contact was restored a day later; engineers are investigating the cause of the outage.
- The communication loss coincided with one group of Voyager 1’s thrusters going offline, triggering an automatic switch to backup thrusters and placing the spacecraft in a safe mode to allow for troubleshooting.
- Voyager 1 is set to become the first human-made object to travel a full light-day away from Earth on November 18, meaning signals will take 24 hours each way to travel between the spacecraft and Earth.
- To extend Voyager 1’s operational life, NASA recently implemented a power-saving maneuver by switching off higher-power instruments and activating lower-power alternatives, delaying the need to shut down additional instruments until after 2027.
- Despite the vast distance and aging technology, Voyager 1 continues to collect valuable data from interstellar space, highlighting its remarkable endurance and contribution to space exploration.
