Saving Voyager 1 - Diagnosing and Recovering NASA's Deep Space Probe

Explore a fascinating conference talk from !!Con 2024 where Bruce Waggoner, Mission Assurance Manager at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab/Caltech, details the dramatic efforts to save Voyager 1 spacecraft in late 2023. Learn how the flight team tackled a critical telemetry loss from the 47-year-old spacecraft, located over 15 billion miles from Earth in interstellar space, and developed innovative solutions to patch the Flight Data System software. Discover the importance of Voyager's ongoing mission in collecting vital data about magnetic fields, plasma, and dust beyond the Heliopause. Gain insights from Waggoner's 39-year career at JPL supporting numerous Earth orbiting and deep space missions, while also learning about his commitment to STEM education through volunteer work as a gymnastics coach and teaching engineering and science to high school girls.