Voyager 1, NASA’s oldest operating spacecraft that is currently traveling 15 billion miles away from earth experienced a communications blackout that lasted for days. The ship is operating well beyond the heliosphere, protective bubble created by the Sun, filled primarily with solar wind particles. This protects our solar system from some, but not all interstellar radiation and cosmic rays.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), located in Pasadena, CA, is home to NASA’s Deep Space Network, and central command to Voyager 1 and its twin probe Voyager 2. Occasionally engineers send commands to Voyager utilizing microwave radio to turn its heaters on to reverse the effects on interstellar radiation. A molecular process called annealing, which uses heat to displace trapped radiation in the ship.

However, when a command sent on October 16 was sent, something triggered the system’s autonomous fault protection system. This protective measure switches power off to non-essential functions to prioritize power resources.

From the 16^th of October to the 24^th communications were down, however a message sent on the 22^nd allowed them to switch from the shuttle’s X-band transmitter to the S-band transmitter, which hasn’t been operational since 1981.

While the S-Band signal is much weaker, it provides the ability to deduce problems with the former and stands as an innovative service hack to overcome a communications challenge that would otherwise render them without the ability to fix the problem.

While it may be weeks before the team seeks the underlying issue, the team is working to manage Voyager 1’s remaining power carefully to prioritize essential functions like the heater.