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In January of this year, NASA’s Voyager 2 was traveling in deep space when suddenly it started to present problems.
On January 28, the spacecraft suffered a technical malfunction in which its software unexpectedly shut down its scientific instruments.
Inverse is counting down the 20 most changing moments in the universe of 2020. This is number 20. See the full list here.
Working from the ground, NASA engineers had to try to repair Voyager 2 while it was 11.5 billion miles from Earth. Incredibly, a few days later the space probe was back online.
Voyager 2 went black just before a maneuver was planned in which the spacecraft rotates 360 degrees to calibrate one of its onboard instruments. The spacecraft never moved.
As a result, two of its systems – both consuming a lot of energy – were running at the same time and the spacecraft was consuming too much available power, which triggered the protection software.
The software automatically shuts down Voyager 2’s science instruments in the event of a power surge to save energy. After all, NASA can’t supply Voyager 2 – it’s just too far away.
To repair Voyager 2, NASA engineers sent commands to the spacecraft which took 17 hours to deliver as it is literally the furthest object from man in space. Then it took another 17 hours for the spacecraft to communicate.
The solution was in many ways a feat of incredible patience: NASA’s ground control had to wait 34 hours to make sure its commands were transmitted to the spacecraft.
It’s a bit like yelling at your computer from another room, except that the room is across the empty void of space.
Patience, however, is truly a virtue.
On February 5, NASA’s Voyager Twitter account broke the good news: Voyager 2 was not only stable, but had resumed its critical science mission.
Voyager 2 began its journey into space alongside its sister spacecraft Voyager 1 in 1977, and both made the leap into interstellar space in 2011, where they traveled beyond the Solar System.
Together, they have transformed our understanding of our stellar neighborhood and are already revealing unprecedented information about interstellar space beyond the Sun’s sphere of influence.
Both are still about five years old, but hopefully there will be no more problems.
Inverse is counting down the 20 most changing moments in the universe of 2020. This is number 20. Read the original story here.
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