Voyager 1 was launched in 1972 and holds the record for the farthest human made object from Earth, currently traveling away from us at a distance of over 15 billion miles. However, recently NASA finally lost contact with the aged space probe, after directing it to turn on a heater, but it’s sending signals once again.
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00:00Voyager 1 was launched in 1972 and holds the record for the farthest human-made object
00:09from Earth, currently traveling away from us at a distance of over 15 billion miles.
00:14However, recently NASA finally lost contact with the aged space probe after directing
00:18it to turn on a heater.
00:20The space agency has since figured out that the shutdown of the communications was a result
00:24of a failsafe.
00:25After the heater drew too much power, it shut off another non-essential system.
00:29In that case, it was its X-band radio communication system, and just one day later it overdrew
00:33power and shut off again, causing the craft to shut the system down for good.
00:38This was bad news for the spacecraft, as it would now have to attempt to communicate via
00:42the S-band transmitter, a much weaker radio communications method, which uses less power.
00:47Now in a surprise to many at Mission Control, Voyager 1's S-band radio communication system
00:52was turned on and it works, and it's the first time the system has been activated since 1981.
00:57NASA has been able to communicate with the probe regularly since, though they are diligently
01:01working on bringing the X-band radio system back online.
01:05This is all happening using diagnostics over the S-band radio, an achievement in and of
01:09itself given the distance.
01:10Still, no matter which way you cut it, Voyager 1 and 2 are in their dying days, both expected
01:15to stop sending back data sometime in 2025.