Voyager 1 has been using one of its two radio transmitters, called an X-band based on the frequency it utilizes, for decades. Meanwhile, the other transmitter, called the S-band, which uses a ...

The team later discovered that the spacecraft had turned off its primary X-band radio transmitter and instead switched over to its secondary S-band radio transmitter, which uses less power ...

NASA's suspicion is that the X-band transmitter had set off the fault protection system twice more, which would have caused the craft to turn it off completely. In its place, Voyager 1 would have ...

Engineers quickly determined that Voyager 1’s automated systems had likely switched from the high-power X-band transmitter to the low-power S-band transmitter, which hadn’t been activated for ...

The issue began in October when the aging probe automatically switched from its primary X-band radio transmitter and began relying on a much weaker S-band radio transmitter to communicate with its ...

The failsafe system also impacted the probe's X-band radio transmitter, which is why engineers hypothesized that Voyager was experiencing a problem. NASA explained: The flight team suspected that ...

Voyager unexpectedly turned off its primary radio transmitter, known as its X-band, before turning on its much weaker S-band transmitter in October. The interstellar spacecraft is currently ...