NASA reconnects with interstellar Voyager 1 spacecraft using technology not used since 1981
After a brief pause in communications with Voyager 1, NASA re-established a connection with the interstellar spacecraft located more than 15 billion miles away from Earth, using a frequency not used more than forty years.Communication between NASA and Voyager 1 has been spotty at times. In fact, the spacecraft stopped sending readable data to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on Nov. 14, 2023, and it was not until April that mission controllers began receiving commands once again.More recently, the spacecraft turned off one of its two transmitters after what engineers suspected was due to Voyager 1’s fault protection system, which autonomously responds to onboard issues.For instance, if the spacecraft uses too much power from its supply source, fault protection wi...