After a brief pause in communications with Voyager 1, NASA re-established a connection with the interstellar spacecraft located more than 15 billion miles away from Earth, using a frequency not used more than forty years.

Communication between NASA and Voyager 1 has been spotty at times. In fact, the spacecraft stopped sending readable data to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on Nov. 14, 2023, and it was not until April that mission controllers began receiving commands once again.

More recently, the spacecraft turned off one of its two transmitters after what engineers suspected was due to Voyager 1’s fault protection system, which autonomously responds to onboard issues.

For instance, if the spacecraft uses too much power from its supply source, fault protection will kick in to conserve power by turning off non-essential systems, NASA explained.

VOYAGER 1 DETECTS ‘HUM’ WHILE IN INTERSTELLAR SPACE: REPORT

The space agency said the flight team sent a command to activate one of the spacecraft’s heaters on Oct. 16. The command takes nearly 23 hours to travel from Earth to the spacecraft, and then another 23 hours for the data to travel back.

Engineers suspected Voyager 1 should have had plenty of power to operate the heather, though the fault protection system was triggered.

On Oct. 18, the team learned about the issue, because the Deep Space Network was unable to detect Voyager 1’s signal. Communication between NASA and the spacecraft occurs on the X-band radio transmitter, named for the frequency it uses.

NASA PUBLISHES NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN PHOTOS OF ‘RAVIOLI’ MOON ORBITING SATURN

The fault protection system lowered the rate the transmitter was able to send data back to NASA, engineers determined, therefore changing the X-band signal the Deep Space Network needed to listen for.

Once the signal was located, Voyager 1 appeared to be in a stable state and the team began investigating what happened.

But on Oct. 19, communication between the team and Voyager 1 stopped again, this time entirely.

The team believed Voyager 1’s fault protection system was triggered two more times and switched to a second radio transmitter called the S-band, which uses less power.

NASA RE-ESTABLISHES COMMUNICATION WITH VOYAGER 1 INTERSTELLAR SPACECRAFT THAT WENT SILENT FOR MONTHS

Voyager 1 had not used the S-band to communicate with Earth since 1981.

Engineers with the Deep Space Network were ultimately able to detect the spacecraft’s communication from the S-band. Rather than risk turning the X-band back on before finding out what caused the fault protection system to trigger, the team sent a command on Oct. 22 to confirm the S-band transmitter was working.

Now, the team is working to gather information to help them find out what happened so it can return Voyager 1 back to normal operations.

Voyager 1′s odyssey began in 1977 when the spacecraft and its twin, Voyager 2, were launched on a tour of the gas giant planets of the solar system.

After beaming back dazzling postcard views of Jupiter’s giant red spot and Saturn’s shimmering rings, Voyager 2 hopscotched to Uranus and Neptune. Meanwhile, Voyager 1 used Saturn as a gravitational slingshot to power itself past Pluto.

In less than 48 hours, SpaceX pulled off a stunning feat, conducting four launches in three states, with huge implications for the future of space exploration.

The first launch came on Sunday, with the enormous Starship rocket blasting off from the southern tip of Texas. Remarkably, the first-stage booster flew back to the launch pad, where the tower’s metal arms caught the descending 232-foot booster. 

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk called it a "Big step towards making life multiplanetary." 

SPACEX LAUNCHES MISSION TO SPACE STATION THAT WILL BRING BACK STRANDED NASA ASTRONAUTS NEXT YEAR

The spacecraft continued its journey around the world, soaring more than 130 miles high before eventually landing in the Indian Ocean, piling on SpaceX’s achievements. 

Starship is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, with 33 methane-fuel engines on the booster alone. 

The next day, a NASA spacecraft lifted off aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, bound for Jupiter and its moon Europa.  

The Europa Clipper will peer beneath the moon’s icy crust to determine whether conditions there could support life. 

Then on early Tuesday, SpaceX launched two Falcon 9 rockets – one from Florida and another in California – sending dozens of Starlink satellites into orbit. 

The first launch, from Cape Canaveral, marked SpaceX’s 100th launch of the year, with still two-and-a-half months left in 2024. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft touched down on Earth early Saturday morning, with two test pilots left behind in space until next year over NASA's concerns that their return was too risky.

Starliner parachuted into New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range six hours after leaving the International Space Station, landing at 12:01 a.m. ET.

"I am extremely proud of the work our collective team put into this entire flight test, and we are pleased to see Starliner’s safe return," Ken Bowersox, associate administrator of Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement.

"Even though it was necessary to return the spacecraft uncrewed, NASA and Boeing learned an incredible amount about Starliner in the most extreme environment possible," he added. "NASA looks forward to our continued work with the Boeing team to proceed toward certification of Starliner for crew rotation missions to the space station."

BOEING STARLINER UNDOCKS FROM SPACE STATION, HEADS BACK TO EARTH UNMANNED AS CREW STAYS BEHIND

This comes after the June launch of Boeing's long-delayed crew debut and a mission plagued by thruster failures and helium leaks. The return of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams was in question for months as engineers struggled to understand what was wrong with the spacecraft.

Boeing claimed after extensive testing that Starliner was safe to bring the crew home, but NASA disagreed and instead tapped SpaceX to fly them back to Earth. The SpaceX spacecraft will not launch until the end of this month, so they will remain in space until February.

Wilmore and Williams were initially scheduled to have flown Starliner back to Earth by mid-June, a week after it was launched. However, the flight to the space station faced issues over thruster trouble and helium loss, leading NASA to determine it was too risky to bring them home on Starliner.

After receiving new software updates, the fully automated capsule departed with the crew's blue spacesuits and some old station equipment.

Starliner's crew demo concluded a series of delays and setbacks for the spacecraft. 

After the space shuttles retired more than a decade ago, NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX for orbital taxi service. But Boeing faced many problems on its first test flight without a crew in 2019, so it had to try again. The do-over three years later revealed even more issues, and it cost more than $1 billion to complete the needed repairs.

SpaceX's crew ferry flight later this month will be the 10th it has done for NASA since 2020. The Dragon capsule will launch on the half-year expedition with only two astronauts, since two seats are needed to bring Wilmore and Williams back home.

Even prior to launch in early June from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Starliner’s propulsion system was leaking helium. The leak was small and believed to be isolated, but four more were discovered after liftoff. Five thrusters then failed and while four of them were recovered, the problems gave NASA concerns about whether more malfunctions might cause problems with the capsule's descent from orbit.

Boeing conducted numerous thruster tests in space and on the ground over the summer, and believed its spacecraft could safely bring the astronauts back. NASA, however, remained skeptical over the thruster issues and tasked SpaceX with their return.

Flight controllers conducted more test firings of the capsule’s thrusters after undocking, with one failing to ignite. Engineers believe the thrusters become hotter the more they are fired, causing protective seals to swell and obstruct the flow of propellant. None of the parts will be able to be examined, as the section holding the thrusters was tossed just before reentry.

NASA ASTRONAUT SAYS STARLINER CREW LIKELY TO CHANGE EXERCISE ROUTINE DURING EXTENDED ISS STAY

Starliner will be moved back to NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

"I want to recognize the work the Starliner teams did to ensure a successful and safe undocking, deorbit, re-entry and landing," Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of Boeing's Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement. "We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program."

NASA's commercial crew program manager Steve Stich said earlier this week that the space agency still wants to have two competing U.S. companies transporting astronauts into space. NASA hopes SpaceX and Boeing can take turns launching crews until the space station is abandoned in 2030 ahead of its fiery reentry.

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"We are excited to have Starliner home safely. This was an important test flight for NASA in setting us up for future missions on the Starliner system," Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement after Starliner returned to Earth. "There was a lot of valuable learning that will enable our long-term success. I want to commend the entire team for their hard work and dedication over the past three months."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The mystery behind a "strange noise" that a NASA astronaut heard coming from the Boeing Starliner spacecraft while aboard the International Space Station has been solved, the space agency said Monday.

Astronaut Butch Wilmore first reported the pulsating sound coming from a speaker inside the spacecraft to Mission Control at Johnson Space Center in Houston on Saturday, just days before it was set to leave the station and return to Earth on autopilot.

NASA said in a statement on social media that the pulsing sound from the speaker has since stopped and determined the feedback was the result of an audio configuration between the space station and Starliner.

"The space station audio system is complex, allowing multiple spacecraft and modules to be interconnected, and it is common to experience noise and feedback," NASA said. "The crew is asked to contact mission control when they hear sounds originating in the comm system. The speaker feedback Wilmore reported has no technical impact to the crew, Starliner, or station operations, including Starliner’s uncrewed undocking from the station no earlier than Friday, Sept. 6."

NASA ASTRONAUT STUCK IN SPACE REPORTS ‘STRANGE NOISES’ FROM TROUBLED STARLINER CAPSULE

The mystery of the pulsating sound comes as Starliner is slated to undock from the space station empty and attempt to return on autopilot with a touchdown in the New Mexico desert. 

Wilmore and astronaut Suni Williams, who have been stuck on the space station since June, are expected to remain in space until February after NASA decided it was too risky to bring the seasoned pilots back to Earth aboard Starliner. The current plan is to bring the astronauts back in a SpaceX capsule.

NASA PLANS TO SEND 2 ASTRONAUTS INSTEAD OF 3 TO ISS SO PAIR STRANDED BY TROUBLED BOEING STARLINER CAN RETURN

The astronauts were originally slated for a weeklong trip, but the mission has been mired in problems after thruster failures and helium leaks.

Boeing had counted on Starliner’s first crew trip to revive the troubled spacecraft program after years of delays and ballooning costs. The company had insisted Starliner was safe based on recent thruster tests in both space and on the ground.

Fox News Digital’s Bradford Betz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A NASA astronaut at the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday reported hearing a "strange noise" coming from the Boeing Starliner spacecraft just days before it is set to leave the station and return to Earth on autopilot.

The astronaut, Butch Wilmore, radioed Mission Control at Johnson Space Center in Houston to inquire about the noise. 

On an audio recording of the exchange, Wilmore holds up a phone to the speakers so that Mission Control could hear the noise he was referring to. A pulsating sound emanating at steady intervals can be heard through Wilmore’s device. 

"Butch, that one came through," Mission Control says after not hearing it the first time. "It was kind of like a pulsating noise, almost like a sonar ping." 

NASA PLANS TO SEND 2 ASTRONAUTS INSTEAD OF 3 TO ISS SO PAIR STRANDED BY TROUBLED BOEING STARLINER CAN RETURN

"I’ll do it one more time and let you all scratch your heads and see if you can figure out what’s going on," Wilmore tells Mission Control, playing the sound one more time. 

Mission Control tells Wilmore the recording will be passed along and that they'll let him know what they find.

Wilmore clarifies that the sound is emanating from the speaker inside the Starliner. 

The bizarre sound was first reported by Ars Technica, which cited a recording first captured and shared by Michigan-based meteorologist Rob Dale. 

Fox News Digital has reached out to Mission Control and Boeing to inquire if the source of the sound has been identified. 

Starliner is slated to undock from the ISS, empty, and attempt to return on autopilot with a touchdown in the New Mexico desert. 

NASA decided it was too risky to bring back Wilmore and Suni Williams until February. The astronauts were originally slated for a weeklong trip in early June, but the mission has been mired in problems after thruster failures and helium leaks.

Boeing had counted on Starliner’s first crew trip to revive the troubled spacecraft program after years of delays and ballooning costs. The company had insisted Starliner was safe based on all the recent thruster tests in both space and on the ground.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.