NASA revives 'dead' thrusters on Voyager 1 after two decades of inactivity

NASA revived roll thrusters on the -year-old Voyager that were thought to be dead for two decades According to the space agency scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA located in Southern California have reactivated a set of thrusters on the spacecraft The roll thrusters have not worked since and are long assumed to have been out of commission These thrusters are central because Voyager's main thrusters appear to have chosen residue forming that could cause them to clog Scientists estimate those thrusters could fail as early as Fall NASA ASTRONAUT REVEALS THEY NEARLY FAILED TO DOCK BOEING STARLINER TO INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATIONThe antenna on Earth responsible for sending commands to both Voyager and Voyager will be offline for several months Deep Space Station a -foot-wide antenna in Australia will be offline until February due to needed upgrades While that antenna is being upgraded the unit at NASA will not be able to communicate with the twin space probes NASA FINALIZES STRATEGY FOR HUMAN PRESENCE IN SPACESuzanne Dodd Voyager project manager and director of the Interplanetary Grid at JPL noted these upgrades are crucial for future Moon missions These antenna upgrades are major for future crewed lunar landings and they also increase communications quota for our science missions in deep space particular of which are building on the discoveries Voyager made Dodd mentioned in a press release Each Voyager has a set of primary thrusters that control movement in all directions as well as smaller thrusters for what is called roll control Using the smaller thrusters allows the Voyager s antenna to stay aligned with Earth so the scientists can communicate with it While there is a third set of thrusters which were brought back online in and Voyager does not have the capability to perform the roll adjustments needed to keep a connection with Earth If Earth happened to lose connection with Voyager it would be nearly impossible to restore communication CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPVoyager was launched in and has traveled nearly billion miles away and is at this time exploring interstellar space which is beyond our Solar System Both Voyager and Voyager have traveled farther than any other human-made objects Voyager 's notable discoveries include finding a thin ring around Jupiter along with moons orbiting the Solar System's largest planet that had not been seen before It also discovered five moons orbiting Saturn along with a previously unknown ring around the gas giant