Engineers have now resumed full science operations on Voyager-1, presently more 15 billion miles from Earth, after computer issues shut the spacecraft down in November 2023.

The team partially resolved the issue in April when they prompted the spacecraft to begin returning engineering data, which includes information about the health and status of the spacecraft. On May 19, the mission team executed the second step of that repair process and beamed a command to the spacecraft to begin returning science data. Two of the four science instruments returned to their normal operating modes immediately. Two other instruments required some additional work, but now, all four are returning usable science data.

The four instruments study plasma waves, magnetic fields, and particles. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are the only spacecraft to directly sample interstellar space, which is the region outside the heliosphere — the protective bubble of magnetic fields and solar wind created by the Sun.

Voyager-2 is 12 billion miles from Earth. Both spacecraft are using what are the longest continously running computers ever built, having been turned on 47 years ago. Both spacecraft however do not have much longer to live, despite the recent fixes. The nuclear power source for both no longer provides enough power to run all their instruments, and will run down completely sometime in 2026, as expected, when operations will finally cease.

The spacecraft however will continue to fly out into interstellar space. In 40,000 years or so Voyager-1 will get within 1.6 light years of the star Gliese 445 in the constellation Camelopardalis, while at the same time Voyager 2 will pass 1.7 light-years from the star Ross 248 in the constellation Andromeda.