The spacecraft—humanity's most distant probe—managed to resumed contact by switching to a secondary radio not used since 1981.

A Space.com report indicated that the issue arose when engineers instructed Voyager 1 to activate a heater for its instruments. This led the spacecraft's fault protection system to switch off the primary X-band transmitter, as non-essential systems had already been deactivated to conserve energy.

The mission, launched in 1977, became the first spacecraft to cross the boundary of the solar system by venturing into interstellar space. Voyager 1 is currently 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away from Earth, and its upkeep is becoming more challenging.

The spacecraft, launched in 1977, is 15 billion miles away from Earth. It stopped sending data but NASA managed to get it restarted.

Voyager 1 is shouting across the cosmos again, following a glitch that had seen it inadvertently switch to its low-power transmitter.