Overview

• Voyager 1's primary roll thrusters, unused for over two decades, were successfully reactivated by NASA engineers in May 2025.
• The fix was critical as the spacecraft relies on these thrusters to maintain its orientation and communication with Earth, now 25 billion kilometers away.
• NASA hypothesized and corrected a flipped power-supply switch to restore heater functionality, enabling the thrusters to operate again.
• The restoration was completed ahead of a scheduled downtime for the Canberra Deep Space Network antenna, which will be offline until February 2026 for upgrades.
• Engineers acted urgently to mitigate the risk of backup thruster clogging from propellant residue, which could pose a threat to the mission by fall 2025.