NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, launched in 1977, has been exploring space for decades and crossed into interstellar space in 2012. Recently, the spacecraft experienced communication problems. In response, it switched to a backup S-band radio transmitter, which had been dormant since 1981, after the primary X-band transmitter was disabled by the spacecraft’s fault protection system. This system was activated by an accidental command that sent the spacecraft into a protective mode, resulting in a temporary communication blackout.
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