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NASA has once again reconnected with its Voyager spacecraft, marking a continuation of the American space agency’s longest mission in history.
美国国家航空航天局再次与旅行者号（Voyager）宇宙飞船重新连接，标志着美国航天局历史上最长的任务继续进行。
The two spacecraft – Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 – launched within weeks of each other in 1977.
两艘宇宙飞船——旅行者1号和旅行者2号——于1977年在相隔几周的时间内陆续发射升空。
So they have been operating for more than 47 years.
它们已经经营了超过47年。
NASA officials have reported several difficulties with the spacecraft in recent years, mainly communication issues.
近年来，美国宇航局官员报告了该航天器面临的一些困难，主要是通信问题。
The most recent problems involved the Voyager 1 spacecraft.
最近的问题涉及旅行者1号宇宙飞船。
NASA said in a statement in April it had remained out of touch with the spacecraft for the previous five months.
美国宇航局在4月份的一份声明中表示，在此前的五个月里，它一直与该航天器保持着联系。
Agency officials said they later learned the problem was linked to a chip inside one of Voyager 1’s onboard computers.
该机构官员说，他们后来了解到问题与旅行者1号机载计算机中的一个芯片有关。
The issue made data being sent by the spacecraft unreadable.
这个问题导致飞船发送的数据无法被读取。
NASA said its engineers were able to fix that problem by making changes to how the spacecraft stores and reads data.
美国宇航局表示，其工程师能够通过改变航天器存储和读取数据的方式来解决这个问题。
Then, in October, NASA reported another communication issue that resulted in a brief delay in receiving data from Voyager 1.
然后，在10月，美国宇航局报告了另一个通信问题，导致从旅行者1号接收数据有短暂延迟。
That problem turned out to be linked to the spacecraft’s radio transmitter system.
原来这个问题与航天器的无线电发射系统有关。
The agency said that, for some reason, Voyager 1’s fault protection system was activated when NASA sent a command for the spacecraft to turn on one of its heaters.
该机构表示，由于某种原因，当美国宇航局发出命令，要求旅行者1号打开其中一个加热器时，旅行者1号的故障保护系统会被激活。
This activation – meant to save power – led Voyager 1 to start sending signals to a different radio transmitter system than it normally uses.
为了节省电力，这次激活使得旅行者1号开始向一个不同于它通常使用的无线电发射系统发送信号。
This meant NASA had to listen for the signals on the S-band instead of the usual X-band.
这意味着美国宇航局不得不监听S波段的信号，而不是通常监听的X波段。
Once they did this, they were able to start receiving data again.
只要监听S波段的信号，他们就能再次开始接收数据。
NASA has said the S-band is much weaker than the X-band, so engineers were seeking to get the X-band radio communication system back online for long-term use.
美国宇航局表示，S波段比X波段弱得多，所以工程师们正试图让X波段无线电通信系统重新上线，以便长期使用。
NASA said the agency had not used the S-band since 1981.
美国宇航局表示，该机构自1981年以来就没有使用过S波段。
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are NASA’s most distant operating spacecraft.
旅行者1号和旅行者2号是美国宇航局发射最远的还在运行中的航天器。
The agency has reported Voyager 1 is exploring space from about 24 billion kilometers from Earth, while Voyager 2 is operating from about 20.5 billion kilometers away.
该机构报告说，旅行者1号在距离地球大约240亿公里的地方探索太空，而旅行者2号在距离地球大约205亿公里的地方运行。
Because of this great distance, NASA says its communication with the two Voyagers takes about one day to receive data, and another day to send information back from Earth.
由于距离遥远，美国宇航局表示，它与两个旅行者号的通信大约需要一天的时间来接收数据，再花一天的时间从地球发出信息。
The two Voyagers were first designed to explore Jupiter and Saturn.
这两艘“旅行者”号最初的设计目的是用来探索木星和土星的。
Both spacecraft successfully carried out studies of those planets.
两艘宇宙飞船都成功地对木星和土星进行了研究。
Later, Voyager 2 made the first-ever close observations of Uranus and Neptune in 1989.
后来，旅行者2号在1989年首次近距离观测了天王星和海王星。
The two spacecraft then began a new mission to explore distant areas of space.
随后，这两艘宇宙飞船开始了探索遥远太空的新任务。
In 2013, NASA announced Voyager 1 had crossed over the border dividing our solar system from interstellar space.
2013年，美国宇航局宣布旅行者1号已经越过了太阳系和星际空间的边界。
The term “interstellar” means “between stars.”
“星际”一词的意思是“恒星之间”。
Scientists say interstellar space begins where the sun's continuous flow of particles and its magnetic field stop.
科学家说，星际空间始于太阳持续的粒子流和它的磁场停止的地方。
Voyager 2 first entered interstellar space in 2018. NASA said the spacecraft was more than 17.7 billion kilometers from the sun at the time.
旅行者2号于2018年首次进入星际空间。美国宇航局表示，当时该航天器距离太阳超过177亿公里。
Both Voyagers are the only spacecraft so far to explore interstellar space.
两艘“旅行者”号是迄今为止唯一探索星际空间的航天器。
The space agency says the Voyagers are studying how the interstellar medium interacts with the solar wind.
美国宇航局表示，旅行者号正在研究星际介质是如何与太阳风相互作用的。
Solar wind is the continuous flow of charged particles released by the sun.
太阳风是太阳释放的带电粒子流。
The spacecraft have also provided data on the heliosphere, a kind of protective bubble around our solar system.
宇宙飞船还提供了关于日球层的数据，日球层是太阳系周围的一种保护气泡。
Suzanne Dodd is the current project manager for the Voyager mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
苏珊娜·多德是美国宇航局加州喷气推进实验室旅行者号任务的现任项目经理。
She recently said in a statement the agency has no plans to retire the two Voyagers as long as they are communicating with mission members back on Earth.
她最近在一份声明中表示，只要这两艘旅行者号与地球上的任务成员保持联系，该机构就不会计划让它们退役。
Dodd said the spacecraft are currently centered on observing how interstellar space and the heliosphere interact with each other.
多德说，该航天器目前的重点是观察星际空间和日球层如何相互作用。
"We wouldn't be doing Voyager if it wasn't taking science data," she added.
“如果没有科学数据，我们就不会运行旅行者号，”她补充说。
Dodd noted one reason the Voyagers have been operating for so long is that the engineers who built them provided multiple backup systems to avoid future problems.
多德指出，旅行者号能够运行这么长时间的一个原因是，建造它们的工程师提供了多个备用系统，以避免未来出现问题。
She said some who worked on Voyager in its earliest days have even come back from retirement to pass on knowledge to the next generation of scientists and engineers.
她说，一些早期在旅行者号工作过的人甚至已经退休返聘，把知识传授给下一代的科学家和工程师。
"From where I sit as a project manager, it's really very exciting to see young engineers be excited to work on Voyager,” Dodd said.
多德说：“从我作为项目经理的角度来看，看到年轻的工程师们对‘旅行者’号的工作很兴奋，这让我很开心。”
“To take on the challenges of an old mission and to work side by side with some of the masters, the people that built the spacecraft – they want to learn from each other."
“接受旧任务的挑战，与一些大师并肩协作，那些建造了宇宙飞船的人们-他们希望能相互学习。”
I’m Bryan Lynn.
布莱恩·林恩报道。
