The total amount of five tools on NASA’s praised Voyager 2 spaceship is back in business as it already started o collect science information. The unfortunate event from January affected Voyager 2 and interrupted its operations entirely.
NASA made the statement on March 3 that over a month after the issue, the spaceship can return to its mission. Maintenance for Voyager 2 is a moderate process because of its length from Earth. Engineers need 17 hours for each command to reach the spacecraft, and then wait for the data to return with results to check its efficacy.
Voyager 2 succeeded in returning to its normal functioning on January 25. NASA stated: “The five operating science instruments, which were turned off by the spacecraft’s fault protection routine, are back on and returning normal science data.”
Voyager 2 is Ready to Continue Its Mission
Voyager 2, similar to its brother Voyager 1, lifted off back in August 1977 and has been performing its duty since then. Such prolonged space exploration takes its toll; as the spaceship have long surpassed their project anticipation, engineers always searched for ways to enhance the probes.
The January issue happened when Voyager 2 didn’t catch a spin maneuver to adjust its magnetic-field tool. That problem left two power-needy systems simultaneously, the spaceship identified the danger of the incident and triggered a prescheduled fault-protection method. Such a thing only shows how complicated yet advanced the Voyager spaceships were developed.
Since the encountered issue, project engineers have been running lots of tests and performed a series of processes to disable the power-hungry systems and to make Voyager 2’s five remaining science tools ready to work. Those instruments are supporting researchers’ studies, helping them understand what is there beyond the heliosphere, the bubble of space influenced by our host star. Voyager 2 left that area back in November 2018 and is now reaching the interstellar space.
