Voyager Maintenance Work from 7 Billion Miles Away

Astronauts can make service visits to the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, but what do you do if the spacecraft needing a replacement part is the farthest human-made object from Earth, more than twice as distant as Pluto?

By Space Daily Editorial Team · Editorial process

Published April 8, 2002 · Updated March 17, 2026

The answer, as the flight team for the Voyager Interstellar Mission recently demonstrated, is to plan ahead and keep top-notch engineers available.

Last month, the team cautiously activated a backup position-sensing system, including a Sun sensor and star tracker, on Voyager 1. The spacecraft had been carrying those components and other spare parts since it was launched in 1977 on what was then slated as a four-year mission.

“After sitting on the shelf for 25 years, it’s like new equipment,” said Ed Massey, Voyager project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

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