Of course, this should not come as a surprise. Both Voyager 1 and 2 are considered quite elderly now, and it doesn't help that they are the farthest spacecraft from home, traversing a cold, dark environment. Like you might worry about an elderly relative, every slight stumble that the Voyager probes make is alarming. And yet, the two Voyager spacecraft seem to be outlasting predictions that they would have succumbed to low power levels by now. Their remaining instruments keep operating as they explore the depths of the outermost solar system beyond the Kuiper Belt, although Voyager 2 was forced to switch off its Plasma Science instrument in September — the first instrument on either spacecraft to have been switched off in 16 years.

Use Organic Products: Only use organic products in the showers to ensure that the water we treat is as clean as possible. These products are strictly for use in the showers, so please don’t bring them to the lake.

Shower Wisely: Showers times are limited each day of the festival to conserve water. Please check the running times, be patient, and remember that this measure is for the greater good.

Portugal has been facing systemic droughts and we have the responsibility to have a wise water management system. On 16 February 2022, 99.4% of Portugal was under drought. Villages that were submerged for decades became entirely visible. Some hydropower dams had to be put temporarily on halt to preserve water.

Water is one of our planet's most vital and increasingly scarce resources. As its value becomes more evident, our responsibility to use it wisely and return it to Nature as pure as we received it grows ever stronger.

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So, when engineers commanded Voyager 1 to switch on one of its heaters to give the instruments a gentle thermal massage, a safety feature was tripped because of low power levels. The spacecraft's fault protection system monitors how much energy Voyager 1 has left, and if it deems there to be too little energy for the probe to continue operating, it automatically switches off non-essential systems. It seems that the heater was using too much energy, but the problem was that all the non-essential systems had been switched off long ago to conserve what little power remained, so the fault protection system took it upon itself to switch off the main X-band transmitter and activate the lower-power S-band transmitter instead. Because of the great distance between Voyager 1 and Earth, however, transmissions on the S-band antenna could not be heard by NASA's Deep Space Network, meaning that Voyager 1 had effectively fallen silent.

NASA has confirmed that one of its greatest ever missions, Voyager 1, is back in business with communications restored following an incident in October that had led to the veteran spacefarer losing its voice.

After treatment, these grey waters will be used for irrigation and support our regeneration/reforestation efforts at Boomland.

It's not the first time Voyager 1 has experienced communication problems; the spacecraft has certainly been showing its age. In 2022 and 2023, Voyager 1 began returning garbled telemetry, the latter issue taking until the summer of 2024 to resolve. And in 2023, its twin Voyager 2 experienced a period of communications difficulties. This latest problem just exemplifies how fragile the spacecraft and their subsystems really are.

Respect the Lake: Never use shampoo, soap or any other products in the lake, and never relieve yourself in the water. The lake is a sacred part of Boomland, let’s keep it pristine.

Yet, when they do eventually succumb to the night, the Voyagers won't stop. They'll continue ploughing their lone furrows as they begin long orbits around the galaxy. Their story is just beginning.

In 2018, the Boomland dam reached a minimum of 10% storage. A terrible scenario. In the country water scarcity, poor management of the resource and the focus on intensive agriculture that requires more water add to the problem. With this reality in mind, part of our efforts have been dedicated to the construction of a new onsite wastewater treatment plant that can store up to 7 million litres of water.

And, as each spacecraft loses 4 watts of energy per year from its total energy budget— as the decaying plutonium in their on-board radioisotope thermoelectric generator begins to ebb — their lifespan will ultimately be curtailed. If they can reach their half centuries, which is looking promising, it would be a magnificent achievement. The two Voyagers may now be old and require constant TLC, but they are true trailblazers. Having launched mere weeks apart in 1977, they have explored the outer solar system, discovered a wealth of detail about Jupiter and Saturn's moons, including the intricacies of Io's volcanoes, visited some planets for the first and still the only time (Uranus and Neptune), passed clean through the Kuiper Belt and exited the sun's heliosphere, entering interstellar space.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

Together, we can protect this invaluable resource and ensure that Boomland remains a place where Nature thrives. Your conscious efforts make all the difference.

At Boomland, we are deeply committed to minimizing our impact on the ecosystem. We ensure that water from our restaurants, bars, showers, and other facilities is carefully treated before, during and after every Boom, striving to maintain the balance of our cherished environment.

As you explore Boomland, you'll find several free water points available for your use. The water from these points is sourced from the public grid, in accordance with health and safety regulations in Portugal. We meticulously monitor water quality before, during and after the festival to ensure it meets the highest standards. To prevent wastage, we’ve installed flowmeters at every water point. So, fill up your containers, drink from the tap and stay hydrated - but always be mindful of your water usage.

NASA engineers were able to resolve the problem early in November, and X-band communication resumed on Nov. 18, with the spacecraft once again returning data from its four remaining instruments: the Low-Energy Charged Particle Experiment, the Cosmic-Ray Telescope the Triaxial Fluxgate Magnetometer and the Plasma Waves Experiment.

Now 47 years old, Voyager 1 is 15.4 billion miles (24.9 billion kilometers) from Earth, a distance that grows greater with every passing second. With the power supply from its decaying plutonium dwindling, only four of its instruments remain operational — and surprisingly so, given they are now all working at temperatures lower than they were originally designed for.

WATERBOMB

Portugal has been facing severe droughts - a stark reminder that water is a limited resource and we must save it. Every drop counts.

Keith Cooper is a freelance science journalist and editor in the United Kingdom, and has a degree in physics and astrophysics from the University of Manchester. He's the author of "The Contact Paradox: Challenging Our Assumptions in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence" (Bloomsbury Sigma, 2020) and has written articles on astronomy, space, physics and astrobiology for a multitude of magazines and websites.