NASA Engineers Revive Voyager 1’s ‘Dead’ Thrusters as Data Archives Fuel New Discoveries

In a race against time and technical challenges, NASA engineers have successfully revived a set of thrusters aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft that had been considered inoperable since 2004.

The revival comes at a crucial moment as the spacecraft, launched in 1977 and now traveling through interstellar space at 35,000 mph, faces potential communication challenges. Meanwhile, NASA’s vast data archives continue to yield new scientific discoveries decades after missions end, highlighting the enduring value of the agency’s legacy data.

The engineering feat required creativity and risk as the team worked to fix the thrusters before May 4, when the Earth-bound antenna that sends commands to Voyager went offline for months of upgrades. The success ensures the spacecraft’s ability to maintain critical communication with Earth as it continues its journey through interstellar space, over 15 billion miles from our planet.

Engineering Ingenuity Saves Iconic Spacecraft

The Voyager mission team suspected that an unexpected change in the circuits controlling the thruster heaters’ power supply had effectively flipped a switch to the wrong position. If they could turn the switch back, the heaters might work again, enabling the reactivation of primary roll thrusters considered dead for nearly two decades.

“These thrusters were considered dead. And that was a legitimate conclusion,” said Todd Barber, the mission’s propulsion lead at JPL. “It’s just that one of our engineers had this insight that maybe there was this other possible cause and it was fixable. It was yet another miracle save for Voyager.”

The solution required precise timing and careful execution. The team needed to fix and restart the heaters before the spacecraft’s star tracker drifted too far from its guide star, which would automatically fire the long-dormant thrusters. If the heaters were still off when they fired, it could trigger a small explosion.

Communications Challenge

Adding to the urgency was an impending communications gap. From May 4, 2025, through February 2026, Deep Space Station 43 (DSS-43) in Canberra, Australia—the only antenna with enough signal power to send commands to the Voyagers—would be offline for upgrades with only brief periods of operation.

Why was this antenna upgrade necessary despite potentially jeopardizing communication with these historic spacecraft? According to Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager and director of the Interplanetary Network at JPL, “These antenna upgrades are important for future crewed lunar landings, and they also increase communications capacity for our science missions in deep space, some of which are building on the discoveries Voyager made.”

On March 20, the team watched as the spacecraft executed their commands. Because of Voyager’s distance, the radio signal takes over 23 hours to travel from the spacecraft to Earth. Within 20 minutes of receiving the signal, the team saw the temperature of the thruster heaters rise dramatically and knew they had succeeded.

Legacy Data Fuels New Discoveries

While engineers work to extend Voyager’s operational life, the data already collected by NASA missions continues to reveal new secrets. The agency’s science data holdings now exceed 100 petabytes—enough to store 20 billion smartphone photos—and are expected to grow significantly with new missions.

This treasure trove of information enables ongoing scientific breakthroughs long after missions end. Over 50% of scientific publications now rely on archived data, which NASA provides to millions of users across commercial, government, and scientific sectors.

Unlocking New Insights from Past Missions

Modern technology, including advanced image processing and artificial intelligence, helps extract new findings from previous observations. Notable examples include:

• In 2024, researchers revisited 38-year-old Voyager 2 data and identified a critical solar wind event that compressed Uranus’s magnetosphere just before the flyby—an event occurring only about four percent of the time.
• Scientists analyzing the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s archival data confirmed the presence of water ice in permanently shadowed regions at the Moon’s poles in 2018, with further evidence discovered in 2024.
• Archaeologists discovered a previously unknown Mayan city in Mexico using archival airborne Earth science data from NASA’s 2013 LiDAR Hyperspectral & Thermal Imager mission.

The Future of NASA’s Data Archives

NASA is now investing in artificial intelligence foundation models—open-source AI tools designed to extract new findings from existing science data—to further leverage its vast archives.

“NASA’s science data is one of our most valuable legacies,” said Kevin Murphy, NASA’s chief science data officer. “It carries the stories of our missions, the insights of our discoveries, and the potential for future breakthroughs.”

The agency has already developed Earth science foundation models—the Prithvi Geospatial model and Prithvi Weather model—and is now creating similar tools for heliophysics and lunar exploration.

“Our vision is to develop at least one AI model for each NASA scientific discipline, turning decades of legacy data into a treasure trove of discovery,” Murphy explained. “By embedding NASA expertise into these tools, we ensure that our scientific data continues to drive innovation across science, industry, and society for generations to come.”

As Voyager 1 continues its unprecedented journey through interstellar space, its story exemplifies NASA’s dual commitment: extending the operational life of existing missions while maximizing the scientific value of data already collected. In both cases, human ingenuity transforms technical challenges into opportunities for discovery, ensuring that NASA’s missions continue to expand our understanding of the universe—both through new explorations and fresh perspectives on past observations.