Voyager 1, the farthest human-made craft from the Earth, is finally sending back data from all four of its scientific instruments, NASA said this week. That means the agency is once more receiving its readings on plasma waves, magnetic fields, and space-bound particles.
Now, NASA says Voyager 1, which is over 15 billion miles from Earth, is “conducting normal science operations” and the agency just needs to resync its timekeeping software and do some maintenance on a sparingly-used digital tape recorder.
That’s not bad for a probe that has continued to work for the better part of 47 years. Voyager 1 was originally launched in 1977 on a five-year fly-by mission to study Jupiter and Saturn. And despite occasional issues with it and Voyager 2, NASA keeps figuring out ways to squeeze more life out of the probes, like tapping into reserve power or firing up thrusters that hadn’t been used in nearly three decades.
One of several Voyager posters from NASA’s website.
Image: NASA
Now seems like a great time to either remind you of or point you to the sick Voyager posters, like the one above, that NASA has published on its site.
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