47-year-old Voyager 1 spacecraft just fired up thrusters it hasn’t used in decades
Engineers at NASA have successfully fired up a set of thrusters Voyager 1 hasn’t used in decades to solve an issue that could keep the 47-year-old spacecraft from communicating with Earth from billions of miles away. CNN
Voyager 1 and I have a weird bond. We’re within a few weeks of being the same age and as such it has been a constant throughout my life, checking in periodically through the odd news item. Usually when something goes wrong.
It reminds me that life is finite, that the universe is vast and often when I think about it, I get lost in what the tranquility and loneliness of silence deep space must be. Moving faster than I can imagine, a probe out of time.
Anyway, I got back to running last weekend, firing up thrusters I hadn’t used in a very long time. Again, the probe and I are linked through ever increasing failing systems - albeit across millions of kilometres. There’s something poetic about that…