The space probe Voyager 1 was launched in 1977 and is currently 25 billion kilometers (15.6 billion miles) away from earth. The fact that it's still sending signals to earth after 48 years is amazing enough, but a recent communications exchange hints that the probe may be functional for a long time to come.
Voyager 1's backup thrusters have not been used since 2004, when a malfunction occurred and NASA considered them defunct. They were okay with that at the time, since the probe had already long outlasted its life expectancy. But lately Voyager's primary thrusters have been degrading due to a buildup of residue. Without thrusters, the probe wouldn't be able to orient its antenna toward earth, and communication would be lost. Could NASA engineers activate the long-unused backup thrusters? They also had to activate the thruster's heaters that had been deactivated to save energy. The mission was frustrating, as each message to Voyager takes 23 hours to get there, and another 23 hours to hear back. But once again, Voyage 1 surprised us. They don't build them like they used to. -via Slashdot
(Image credit: NASA/JPL)
