Voyager-1, now 15 billion miles away in interstellar space after traveling billions of kilometers from Earth, has reconnected with Earth, though with only a faint signal. NASA re-established contact with the spacecraft on October 24 after an earlier interruption due to the activation of its fault protection system.

The flight team sent a command on October 16 to turn on one of Voyager-1’s heaters. Although it had enough power for the task, the command inadvertently triggered its fault protection, which disrupted communication. The issue became apparent when the Deep Space Network failed to pick up Voyager-1’s signal on October 18.

Managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, communications with Voyager-1 rely on the Deep Space Network. Each command and response cycle with the spacecraft takes nearly two days—about 23 hours each way across the vast 15-billion-mile (24-billion-kilometer) distance. Voyager-1 sends engineering data back in response to commands, enabling the JPL team to monitor the spacecraft’s condition.

Voyagers 1 and 2, both active in interstellar space, have been operating for more than 47 years. Their age brings an increasing frequency of technical challenges, posing complex problems for NASA's mission engineers.