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Diverging Reports Breakdown:
Original Coverage
Engineers at NASA say they have successfully revived thrusters aboard Voyager 1. Voyager 1 is the farthest spacecraft from our planet. The new fix to the vehicle’s original roll thrusters, out of action since 2004, could help keep the veteran spacecraft operating until next year. A side effect of upgrades to an Earth-based antenna that sends commands to Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, the communications pause could have occurred when the probe faced a critical issue. The mission team had to take a risk by switching Voyager 1 to its primary roll thruster and turning them on before attempting to fix and restart the heaters. The heaters could only function if the thrusters also switched on. If Voyager 1 drifted too far from its guide star, the spacecraft’s backup thrusters could have triggered a small explosion at that moment. The spacecraft is currently beyond the heliosphere, the sun’s bubble of magnetic fields and particles that extends well beyond the orbit of Pluto. It is currently 15.5 billion miles (25 billion kilometers) away in interstellar space, as well as receiving commands sent by the Voyager team. The Voyager mission is expected to last another 20 years, if it continues on its current course. It launched in September 1977 and is the only mission to orbit the sun and the moon at the same time. It has been in space for 47 years and has sent back more than 100,000 images of the Earth, the moon and the solar system from its current position in our solar system. It’s the only spacecraft to land on another planet, and the only one with enough strength to send commands to the lander that will land on the moon in 2026. The agency is also working on upgrades to its Deep Space Network, which enables the agency to communicate with all of its spacecraft — but its antenna is not strong enough to transmit commands to Earth. The upgrades are important for future lunar landings. Read full article
After 21 Years, Voyager 1 Fires Its Thrusters Again Thanks To Long-Distance Servicing
Voyager 1’s main thrusters have not worked since 2004. The thrusters are very important to keep the spacecraft antenna pointing at Earth. The current active thrusters could stop working this fall due to the buildup of residue. Voyager 1 is now almost 25 billion kilometers (15 billion miles) from Earth, but the mission team was able to fix the spacecraft’s thrusters even though they had not worked for some time. They managed to do it before the antenna we communicate with it and its twin, Voyager 2, goes offline for months of upgrades. The Deep Space Station 43 is an antenna 70 meters (230 feet) across located in Canberra, Australia, that is part of NASA’s Deep Space Network. It’s the most powerful of the DSN and the only one that can communicate with the Voyager probes now that they are in interstellar space. The communication pause is from May 4 this year to February 2026 due to upgrades to Deep Space station 43, NASA wanted to make sure that they had all contingencies planned for. The team had to place the star tracker that measures the position of the craft pointed as precisely as possible. They believed that a disturbance in a circuit might have “flipped a switch” in the system. If they could flip it again with a command, there was a chance they’d work again. Still, the team executed the maneuver and tried to switch the heaters again, and it worked again. Read full article
Voyager 1 Interstellar Probe Revives Backup Thrusters Before Command Pause
Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California have revived a set of thrusters aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft that had been considered inoperable since 2004. Fixing the thrusters required creativity and risk, but the team wants to have them available as a backup to active thrusters whose fuel tubes are experiencing a buildup of residue. The Voyagers launched in 1977 and are hurtling through interstellar space at around 35,000 mph (56,000 kph). Both spacecraft rely on a set. of primary thrusters to gently pivot them up and down as well as to the right. and left in order to keep their antennas pointed at Earth so they can send back data and receive commands. Within the primary set of. thrusters are other thrusters that control the spacecraft’s roll motion. seen from Earth, the roll motion rotates the antenna like a vinyl record to keep each Voyager pointed at a. guide star it uses to orient itself. But on Voyager 1, the primary roll thrusters stopped working in 2004 after losing power in two small internal heaters. The mission needed to ensure the availability of the long-dormant thrusters before May 4, when the Earth-bound antenna that sends commands to Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 went offline for months of upgrades. It would be a race, and the team faced additional time pressure: Deep Space Station 43 (DSS-43), a 230-foot-wide (70-meter-wide) antenna in Canberra, Australia, would be offline for that time, with brief periods of operation in August and December. Although the Deep Space Network has three complexes spaced around the globe, DSS-43 is only the only one with enough power to send commands to the Voyagers to ensure constant contact with Earth as rotates, only the one with a dish with enough signal power. Read full article
Voyager probes shut off instruments to conserve power
NASA’s twin Voyager probes, which launched 47 years ago, are shutting off some science instruments. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are both exploring uncharted territory in interstellar space. The Voyager spacecraft rely on electricity generated from the heat of decaying plutonium, and both are losing an estimated 4 watts of power per year. Each probe will still collect unique data, although the team will lose the identical particle measurements at the same time, a scientist says.“The Voyagers have been deep space rock stars since launch, and we want to keep it that way as long as possible,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at JPL. “Every bit of additional data we have gathered since then is not only valuable bonus for heliophysics, but also a testament to the exemplary engineering that has gone into the Voyagers starting 50 years ago and continuing to this day,’” she said. ‘Voyager 1 is more than 15 billion miles from Earth, while Voyager 2 is over 13 billion miles (21 billion kilometers) away, according to NASA.’ “The Voyager team has shut off instruments one by one to ensure the probes probes can continue their storied journeys.” ‘‘The Voyager spacecraft have far surpassed their original mission to study the outer planets, Patrick Koehn, Voyager program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said a Voyager program official. � ‘The Voyager spacecraft have been exploring the uncharted territories of our solar system, and they will continue to do so for the next 50 years, if not longer,’” he said.‘“We’re looking forward to the day when we can send a message back to Earth that we’ve seen the other side of the universe, and that the universe has seen us, too” a Voyager scientist said. ‘‘ ‘It’s going to be a very exciting time for the Voyager team’ Read full article
Voyager 1’s dwindling power supply is threatening the 47-year-long mission
NASA engineers have successfully restored contact with Voyager 1 and the spacecraft is operating normally. The aging probe automatically switched from its primary X-band radio transmitter and began relying on a much weaker S-band transmitter. Voyager 1 is currently exploring uncharted territory about 15.4 billion miles (24.9 billion kilometers) away. Each year, the probes lose about 4 watts of power, according to NASA. The probes, which launched weeks apart in 1977, have long outlasted their original missions, designed to fly by the largest planets in our solar system over the course of four years.“The probes were never really designed to be operated like this and the team is learning new things day by day,” said Kareem Badaruddin, Voyager mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in an email. “Thankfully they were able to recover from this issue and learned some things,’’ he said of the Voyager mission assurance manager, Bruce Waggoner. ‘Thankfully they are actively working to make sure it was just one of several issues they had to deal with.’ ‘‘“We’ve known that power is running out (on board) both Voyagers for some time,“Badaruddin said, “but these probes have lasted so much longer than anyone anticipated they would, and it’s amazing that we’re squeezing every last bit of power (and science!) out of them.” ‘ “The probe autonomously made the transmitter swap when its computer determined that Voyager I had too little power after the mission team sent a command to turn on one of its heaters. ’‘ ‘The Voyager probes have already shut off all of their nonessential systems except for science instruments, the fault protection system shut off the S- band transmitter because the latter uses less power. Read full article
Voyager 1 interstellar spacecraft finds its voice again as NASA restores communications
Voyager 1 is back in business with communications restored following an incident in October. The spacecraft’s fault protection system monitors how much energy Voyager 1 has left, and if it deems there to be too little energy for the probe to continue operating, it automatically switches off non-essential systems. Voyager 1 and 2 are considered quite elderly now, and it doesn’t help that they are the farthest spacecraft from home, traversing a cold, dark environment. And yet, the two Voyager probes seem to be outlasting predictions that they would have succumbed to low power levels by now. Their remaining instruments keep operating as they explore the depths of the outermost solar system beyond the Kuiper Belt, although Voyager 2 was forced to switch off its Plasma Science instrument in September — the first instrument on either spacecraft to have been switched off in 16 years. The two Voyagers may now be old and require constant TLC, but they are true trailblazers. They have explored the outer solar system, discovered a wealth of detail about Jupiter and Saturn ‘s moons, including the intricacies of Io ‘s volcanoes and visited some planets for the first and still the only time ( Uranus and Neptune ), passed clean through the KUIper Belt and exited the sun ‘s heliosphere. Yet, when they do eventually succumb to the night, the Voyagers won’t stop. They’ll continue ploughing their lone furrows around the galaxy. Their story is beginning just the beginning, as they begin to begin their story of the universe’s first black holes and the formation of the solar system in the early 1980s. The Voyager 1 mission launched mere weeks apart in 1977, and is now 47 years old. It’s the oldest mission in NASA’s history. Read full article
Voyager 2’s defining Uranus flyby may have been skewed by a rare cosmic event
Voyager 2 was the first and only mission to fly by Uranus in 1986. The data collected by the probe introduced new mysteries that have continued to puzzle scientists. A new look at the data has revealed that Voyager 2 happened to zoom by the distant planet during a rare event. The study results could reinforce the idea that Uranus remains a largely misunderstood world, given that astronomers’ basic knowledge of the planet stemmed from an extraordinary anomaly, the authors say. The findings of the study may have solved some of the riddles created by Voyager 2’s odd Uranus readings, they say. They also suggest that some of Uranus’ moons could be geologically active, as they were probably releasing ions into the magnetosphere before the Voyager 2 flyby, the study says. The results could also help scientists in planning exploratory missions, it says. They say Voyager 2 had arrived at the same time that unusual solar weather was happening at the time of the spacecraft’s flyby. It also provides insight about how Earth’s magnetosphere operates, the researchers say, and how Uranus’ may have behaved before and after the 1986 flyby of the ice giant. The research was published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy, which is published by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and the University of California, San Diego. The full study is available online at: http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/news/science-and- astronomy/voyager-2-flyby-of-Uranus-1986-joint-research-report-naked-by-unusual-stellar-coincidence-nearly-unprecedented-occurrence-in-the-solar-system-for-a-few-years-after-it-occurred-in 1986-JPL. Read full article
Global Perspectives Summary:
Global media portray this story through varied cultural, economic, and political filters. While some focus on geopolitical ramifications, others highlight local impacts and human stories. Some nations frame the story around diplomatic tensions and international relations, while others examine domestic implications, public sentiment, or humanitarian concerns. This diversity of coverage reflects how national perspectives, media freedom, and journalistic priorities influence what the public learns about global events.
How did your country report this? Share your view in the comments.
Sources:
- Original Article
- After 21 Years, Voyager 1 Fires Its Thrusters Again Thanks To Long-Distance Servicing
- Voyager 1 Interstellar Probe Revives Backup Thrusters Before Command Pause
- Voyager probes shut off instruments to conserve power
- Voyager 1’s dwindling power supply is threatening the 47-year-long mission
- Voyager 1 interstellar spacecraft finds its voice again as NASA restores communications
- Voyager 2’s defining Uranus flyby may have been skewed by a rare cosmic event
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/14/science/voyager-1-thruster-fix