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NASA has revived a set of thrusters on the nearly 50-year-old Voyager 1 spacecraft after declaring them inoperable over two decades ago. It's a nice long-distance engineering win for the team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, responsible for keeping the venerable Voyager spacecraft flying - and critical one at that, as clogging fuel lines threatened to derail the backup thrusters currently in use. The things you have to deal with when your spacecraft is operating more than four decades beyond its original mission plan, eh? Voyager 1 launched in 1977. JPL reported Wednesday that the maneuver, completed in March, restarted...

An artist’s concept depicts one of NASA’s Voyager probes. The twin spacecraft launched in 1977. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Mission engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California turned off the cosmic ray subsystem experiment aboard Voyager 1 on Feb. 25 and will shut off Voyager 2's low-energy charged particle instrument on March 24. Three science instruments will continue to operate on each spacecraft. The moves are part of an ongoing effort to manage the gradually diminishing power supply of the twin probes. Launched in 1977, Voyagers 1 and 2 rely on a radioisotope power system that generates electricity from the...

Voyager 1 is once again returning data from two of four science instruments onboard. Things are looking better for one of NASA’s longest running deep space missions. After a several-month period of problems, engineers have announced that the Voyager 1 spacecraft is not only back online but also transmitting useful data from two of four science instruments. Work is now underway to bring the remaining two instruments up to operational status. Problems began last November, when Voyager 1 suddenly began sending a repeating gibberish signal instead of the science and engineering data it typically sends. Troubleshooting on the 46-year-old spacecraft...

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is depicted in this artist’s concept traveling through interstellar space, or the space between stars, which it entered in 2012. Traveling on a different trajectory, its twin, Voyager 2, entered interstellar space in 2018. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NASA’s Voyager mission team is addressing challenges to ensure prolonged functionality of the two spacecraft. They’re mitigating thruster fuel residue issues and implementing a software patch to rectify a previous Voyager 1 glitch. The efforts should help extend the lifetimes of the agency’s interstellar explorers. Engineers for NASA’s Voyager mission are taking steps to help make sure both spacecraft,...

The Voyager 2 spacecraft is one of the testaments to human ingenuity! More than four decades after launch, the spacecraft continues to function, even in the harshest imaginable condition of deep space! Despite being billions of miles away, the tenacious spacecraft continues to send back amazing and even terrifying discoveries to the mission controllers on earth! One of the discoveries was a huge wall of fire when Voyager 2 crossed the boundary of our solar system! What happens at this boundary, and how do the events at this boundary affect us on the earth? Join us as we dive into...

Illustration of a 1970s Voyage spacecraft with a cone-like white section and antenna pointed up. NASA illustration shows a Voyager spacecraft. NASA Interstellar. It's not just the name of a blockbuster sci-fi movie, it's the reality of the Voyager 1 spacecraft, a 45-year-old explorer that's investigating the cosmos outside our solar system and weathering some of the problems that come from age and distance. On Tuesday, NASA JPL announced the Voyager team had tracked down the source of a pesky data glitch. NASA shared the glitch issue in May, calling it a mystery. Voyager 1 was sending back weird, garbled...

Voyager Illustration This artist’s rendering shows NASA’s Voyager spacecraft. On the boom to the right, the Cosmic Ray Science instrument, Low Energy Charged Particle detector, the Infrared Spectrometer and Radiometer, Ultraviolet Spectrometer, Photopolarimeter and Wide and Narrow Angle Cameras are visible. The bright gray square is an optical calibration plate for the instruments. The Golden Record, containing images and sounds from Earth, is the yellow circle on the main spacecraft body. The dish is the spacecraft’s high-gain antenna for communications with Earth. The magnetometer boom stretches out to the upper left. The radio isotope thermoelectric generators, Voyager’s power source, are...

Election Day may have us tied up in anxious knots today. But we can also take solace in the fact that nearly 12 billion miles away, one of humanity's greatest achievements is twinkling back at us, and our understanding of the mysteries of the universe continues to unfold.... ...After a seven-month hiatus without being able to command Voyager 2, NASA is now able to communicate new directions and procedures to the craft, the agency announced. The Voyager 2 space probe, launched in August 1977, has been traveling outward for more than 43 years visiting Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune....

Most of these interstellar spacecraft carry messages intended to introduce ourselves to any aliens that find them along the way. In 1972, NASA hadn't even finished sending Apollo astronauts to the Moon yet when it started launching the first missions that would ultimately wind up in interstellar space. That wasn't the end goal though. Pioneer 10 and 11 were primarily intended to do humanity's first major reconnaisance of other planets in our solar system. Pioneer 10 achieved the first flyby of Mars, the first trip through the asteroid belt, and the first flyby of Jupiter. And the secret to its...

============================================================================== Scientists have finally analyzed data from Voyager 2’s journey to interstellar space and discovered remarkable insight into conditions at the edge of our solar system. The spacecraft reached the interstellar boundary between our solar system and interstellar space in 2018. Voyager 1 reached the boundary in 2012. Both spacecraft were launched in 1977, and have far surpassed scientists' expectations. ============================================================================== Scientists have finally analyzed data from Voyager 2’s journey to interstellar space and discovered a number of surprising differences—plus a few strange similarities. Voyager 1 and 2 launched in August and October of 1977, respectively, and set out to...

Voyager 2 has entered interstellar space. The spacecraft slipped out of the huge bubble of particles that encircles the solar system on November 5, becoming the second ever human-made craft to cross the heliosphere, or the boundary between the sun and the stars.Coming in second place is no mean achievement. Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to exit the solar system in 2012. But that craft’s plasma instrument stopped working in 1980, leaving scientists without a direct view of the solar wind, hot charged particles constantly streaming from the sun (SN Online: 9/12/13). Voyager 2’s plasma sensors are still working,...

The thrusters aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft just did what we thought was impossible. After 37 years of inactivity, NASA just received response from spacecraft 13 billion miles away, NASA said in a statement on its website. Voyager 1 is NASA’s farthest and fastest spacecraft. It was launched on September 5, 1977. Having operated for 40 years, 6 months and 14 days as of March 19, 2018, the spacecraft relies on small devices called thrusters to orient itself so it can communicate with Earth. These thrusters fire in tiny pulses, or “puffs,” lasting mere milliseconds, to subtly rotate the spacecraft...

NASA has just received a response from the void, and believers everywhere are losing their collective minds. After 37 years of inactivity, the NASA spacecraft Voyager 1 fired up its thrusters for the first time in nearly four decades all the way over in interstellar space. This incredible – and unsuspected – triumph means Voyager 1 can once again communicate with Earth, from 13 billion miles away.

================================================================================================================ Researchers have re-examined data captured by the Voyager 2 spacecraft back in 1986, and think they've found evidence of two never-before-seen moons hidden in the rings of Uranus. Uranus, the third largest planet in our Solar System, already has 27 moons that we know of - but these two new ones appear to orbit the planet more closely than any of its other natural satellites, and are causing wavy patterns in its closest rings. Although Saturn is the most famous ringed planet orbiting our Sun, it's not the only one, with the three other gas giants - Jupiter, Uranus,...

Voyager 1 hadn't used its four "trajectory correction maneuver" (TCM) thrusters since November 1980, during the spacecraft's last planetary flyby — an epic encounter with Saturn. But mission team members fired them up again Tuesday (Nov. 28)... The little engines passed the test with flying colors, NASA officials said. "The Voyager team got more excited each time with each milestone in the thruster test," Todd Barber, a propulsion engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. "The mood was one of relief, joy and incredulity after witnessing these well-rested thrusters pick up the baton...

September 6, 2017 | David F. Coppedge Aliens Discover Voyager Record Certain humans are identifying with space aliens, pretending to know what they like. Forty years ago, the Voyager craft were launched for a mission that would never end. The craft, even after depleted of fuel and electronics, would sail endlessly through the stars. The open trajectory of the Voyagers’ voyages prompted Carl Sagan to send a memento from Earth to any potential space aliens who might recover the craft, even though Earth might long have returned to cinder when our sun expands some day into a red giant, engulfing...

Former Star Trek actress Jennifer Lien has been arrested in Tennessee for indecent exposure. Lien is accused of showing her breasts and buttocks to a group of children. Police say Lien was naked when they showed up at her home to arrest her. Lien, who is originally from Palos Heights, was part of the first three seasons of "Star Trek: Voyager." She was "Kes", the alien who joins the ship, and ends up working with the doctor. She left acting some time ago. This is her second arrest this year in Tennessee. She was charged in April with assault and...

A former Star Trek: Voyager actress has been arrested after allegedly exposing herself to two children. Jennifer Lien, 41, who played Kes in the first three seasons of the spin off show, was arrested at her home in Harriman, Tennessee, on September 3.

(CNN)—An actress best known for "Star Trek: Voyager" was arrested on September 3. Jennifer Lien, who played Kes in the first few seasons of the "Star Trek" spinoff series, has been charged with indecent exposure. According to CNN affiliate WATE, Lien was arrested in her home in Harriman, Tennessee. Neighbor Carey Smith told WATE that Lien came by her home to comment on how Smith's children were being raised and started using vulgar language. "All of a sudden, here come the shirt up," said Smith. "She started flashing and, 'Woo hoo,' and I said, 'And what respect is that for...