NASA / Voyager 2 / Poster

The problem occurred as Voyager 2 attempted to rotate 360 degrees in order to calibrate one of its instruments. This movement was energy-intensive and might have triggered protection software — every time the software detects an unusual power consumption, it switches off to save energy. Since Voyager 2 has a finite power source, that makes sense. NASA explains: “Multiple fault protection routines were programmed into both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 in order to allow the spacecraft to automatically take actions to protect themselves if potentially harmful circumstances arise. “ So Voyager’s engineers tried to reset the system and start the shuttle. But considering that it takes 17 hours to send information from Earth to the shuttle and another 17 hours to send it back from the shuttle to Earth, it’s quite a tedious process.