What happened 20 years later? Logically, the lines of the backup thrusters also began to clog, putting the entire mission at risk because it would make it impossible to keep receiving data from it.
The Voyager team, led by Kareem Badaruddin, reexamined the 2004 failure looking for an emergency rescue plan. But… could they fix it before the Canberra antenna went into maintenance?
The rescue plan The engineers reanalyzed the failures of the original heaters and suspected it was “a simple switch in the wrong position” and that if they corrected that, they could turn the heaters back on, and therefore, the original roll thrusters.
Risky? Of course. If the plan didn’t work, the frozen fuel could explode and damage the probe. Was there another option? Then let’s go for it.
Command sent… and now? Once the engineers sent the command, they had to wait 48 long hours to find out if it had worked, almost like childbirth. On March 20, telemetry with the results began to arrive… And the plan had worked (applause, applause!)
What does this mean? That Voyager 1 doesn’t want to die so young; it still has a lot of space left to travel. When the backup thrusters fail, the newly recovered ones could be used to continue generating information about space beyond our planet. It’s as if they roared back to life after 20 years in the garage… millions of kilometers from home!
Of course, this story leaves us with many takeaways, how important it is to never give up! Thanks to that determination, humanity still has a voice travelling through space, far beyond where our imagination can reach!
Safe travels and long life, Voyager 1!