Voyager-1 clings to life, Nasa turns to transmitter not used since 1981

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Nasa successfully re-established communication with the Voyager 1 spacecraft on October 24 after a brief pause due to a fault protection system activation...

Travelling billions of kilometres away from Earth in interstellar space, the Voyager-1 spacecraft has once again established communication with Earth, although on a very faint signal...

"The transmitter shut-off seems to have been prompted by the spacecraft's fault protection system, which autonomously responds to onboard issues," Nasa said...

The spacecraft typically communicates with Earth using what's called an X-band radio transmitter, named for the specific frequency it uses..

The flight team correctly hypothesised that the fault protection system had lowered the rate at which the transmitter was sending back data...

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