NASA keeps ancient Voyager 1 spacecraft alive with Hail Mary thruster fix

https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/15/voyager_1_survives_with_thruster_fix/

220•nullhole•6h ago

Comments

mrbluecoat•6h ago

Such a beautiful tribute to the tenacity of humanity's creativity to beat the odds.

gerdesj•5h ago

... and good old school engineering.

Proper job.

jmclnx•5h ago

Very nice, amazing they were able to keep them working.

I remember when they were launched, I saw an article saying somehow the engineers added better components some functionalities even when they were forbidden. Somehow they hid it.

I forgot exactly what the articles said, but it indicated this was done due to a once in many centuries of the alignment.

mncharity•4h ago

It's Quieter in the Twilight[1] is a 2022 film about associated engineers.

[1] Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vJT8AW0wYw , Free with ads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIP1p5gAoak

mek6800d2•1h ago

Part of this excellent movie revolved around the months-long shutdown of the 70-meter antenna at the Deep Space Network station in Canberra, Australia. Coincidentally, the new JPL press release about Voyager 1's thrusters also details a new months-long shutdown (May 2025-Feb 2026) of that same antenna for more upgrades. It's the only antenna that can transmit to Voyager 2, which flew south of the ecliptic after its Neptune flyby. The DSN stations in Spain and California can still transmit to Voyager 1, which flew north of the ecliptic after its Saturn flyby. (Todd Barber, quoted in the The Register article and in JPL's press release, appears in the movie.)

jakeinspace•4h ago

I can't imagine how rewarding it would be to push this fix and, after many hours, get confirmation of success. I'd be chasing that high the rest of my career.

rudyfink•4h ago

Obviously, it's a great outcome that it worked. But the alternative--"it could trigger a small explosion," JPL noted--would have been interesting too. A sort of in fire or in ice outcome. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44263/fire-and-ice

thom•1h ago

Less impactful obviously, but might I recommend correspondence chess? You will live with constant reminders that past you was either a genius or a moron.

ChrisArchitect•4h ago

Source: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-voyager-1-revives-backup... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43997081)

ednite•4h ago

Moments like this remind me exactly why the hairs on my arms stand up every time I see the NASA logo. It’s not just science, it’s the amazing inspiring human achievement. Incredible work, NASA team.

CobrastanJorji•3h ago

It's frankly bonkers how many insane success-at-long-odds stories NASA has and how few "we made a stupid mistake and everything exploded" stories NASA has.

For every Climate Orbiter "we made an oopsie converting metric to imperial" story, there are three "we figured out how to get the crew of Apollo 13 to fit a square peg into a round hole and they can breath now" miracles.

I mean, sure, there's Apollo 1's "we put people and a bunch of wires in a pressurized can of pure oxygen", but there's also the Perseverance Rover's "we made a crane that holds itself aloft with rockets and lowers a one ton rover gently to the ground on a tether."

voidspark•3h ago

Two space shuttles exploded, killing everyone on board.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disas...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaste...

cr125rider•3h ago

And a bunch of other missions worked great. Learn from failures, progress.

voidspark•3h ago

Yeah it's not "bonkers" or "insane". They learned the hard way. Painful lessons.

jaredhansen•3h ago

Good point, let's just shut it down, nobody should do anything

voidspark•2h ago

That's not my point. The learned painful lessons and their success rate is high.

wqaatwt•1h ago

Didn’t they just stop crewed space flights for (almost)decades instead?

j4coh•1h ago

Wasn’t that more the point of the person you replied with counterexamples to?

thom•1h ago

Let’s assume good faith all round. One poster rightly highlights the overwhelmingly positive track record. Another points out the negatives went a little beyond an “oopsie”.

voidspark•59m ago

Yeah just being respectful to those 14 astronauts who died. They are worth mentioning. Nasa had major setbacks - not an "oopsie". Didn't mean to hijack the thread. Well done Voyager team.

CobrastanJorji•2h ago

They did, yes. And there are fascinating failure stories for each one. But my point is that there were more miraculous successes than miraculous failures. Heck, in my opinion, given that the Space Shuttle flew in atmosphere like a brick, and given that there was no possible way to get a second shot at the landing strip, the fact that they landed successfully every time (except for Columbia, of course) is amazing.

The Apollo flights in particular were interesting. For example, in the case of Apollo 14, when Houston was literally reading new machine code to the astronauts over radio who were punching in POKE instructions by hand to change the code.

hliyan•4h ago

Incredible that they're doing over the air updates for a piece of 50 year old technology using an extremely low bandwidth link, with hours of latency, with no physical access, and doing so without ever permanently losing the link or bricking the device.

I looked into its Viking Computer Command Subsystem (CCS), but there's little documentation out there.

crazydoggers•4h ago

Can’t wait until V’Ger comes back to visit us in the 23rd century to tell us about its travels.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Motion_Pictur...

runeb•4h ago

> The backup roll thrusters in use are now at risk due to residue buildup in their fuel lines

Such a human experience this probe is having

perihelions•3h ago

"The backup roll thrusters in use are now at risk due to residue buildup in their fuel lines, which could cause failure as early as this fall."

If anyone was curious where residue comes from in hypergolic fuel systems, the answer is it's SiO2 (silica) from decaying rubber components,

"After 47 years, a fuel tube inside the thrusters has become clogged with silicon dioxide, a byproduct that appears with age from a rubber diaphragm in the spacecraft’s fuel tank".

┕ https://science.nasa.gov/missions/voyager-program/voyager-1/...

An HN commenter tracked down relevant documentation on NTRS,

"They expel the Hydrazine(N2H4) fuel out of a spherical Ti tank by inflating a rubber balloon that involve Teflon inside the tank using helium supply. I guess N2H4 was potent enough to degrade even those space age materials."

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19810001583/downloads/19...

┕ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41525267

clot27•3h ago

Cold war was best thing happened to humanity for space exploration. AMAZING. I hope we see it again

anadem•3h ago

> Cold war was best thing ... I hope we see it again

Ummm, no thanks

DiggyJohnson•3h ago

You elided the crucial part of the statement…

nektro•2h ago

NASA is truly one of the most inspiring organizations out there

verisimi•1h ago

Yes, it is a source of endless, impossible, triumphant, science stories.

rapjr9•32m ago

Why hasn't anyone launched deep space probes intentionally to get the kind of data the Voyager probes are sending? Seems like a purpose designed probe could last even longer.

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