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ZME Science

Voyager 1 forced to turn to vintage transmitter to call home from 15 billion miles away

ZME Science
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NASA 's Voyager 1 recently encountered an operational issue cutting off contact with mission control.

Engineers at NASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory ( JPL ) reconnected with the spacecraft on Oct. 24 .

The trouble began when Voyager team issued a command telling the spacecraft to turn on one of its heaters.

A fault protection system turned off the main X-band transmitter, a frequency Voyager has used for decades of communication.