Overview

• NASA's Deep Space Station 43 in Canberra began months-long renovations on May 4, 2025, leaving Voyager 1 and 2 without regular communication until February 2026.
• The Canberra antenna is the only facility capable of reaching the Voyager spacecraft, with alternative antennas in California and Madrid lacking the necessary capacity.
• Engineers successfully reactivated Voyager 1's primary roll thrusters, dormant since 2004, to mitigate the risk of backup thruster failure caused by fuel line residue.
• A mispositioned switch disabling thruster heating elements was remotely corrected, avoiding potential spacecraft orientation issues during the communication gap.
• Short communication windows are scheduled for August and December 2025, allowing NASA to monitor the spacecraft, which continue to transmit invaluable data from interstellar space.