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The Voyager 1 spacecraft underwent another "surgery" in March, 23 light-hours away from earth (infosec.pub)

submitted 1 week ago by Microw@lemm.ee to c/spaceflight@sh.itjust.works

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The team had to revive a thruster used for roll control whose heaters had failed in 2004. The tubes of the backup thrusters currently in use are getting clogged and may fail this year.

The delicate operation required turning on the failed thruster and flipping a switch to enable its heater and 🤞

All very tricky and risky operations, performed from 23 light-hours away on 1970’s era hardware.

Via @AkaSci@fosstodon.org

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[–] bizarroland@fedia.io 32 points 1 week ago (6 children)

That is absolutely wild to me.

That is like sending an update to your phone, and if it fails, you'll never have a phone again for the rest of your life, and you won't find out if it succeeded for moments shy of two full days.

[–] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 34 points 1 week ago (4 children)

https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/solar-system/#/home

I had no idea NASA had a visualization like this for us. Voyager 1 + 2 are magnificent.

[–] Hideakikarate@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 week ago

That really puts it into perspective on how far they've gone. Good find. Very neat.

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