Inverse:

In an incredible feat of remote engineering, NASA has fixed one of the most intrepid explorers in human history. Voyager 2, currently some 11.5 billion miles from Earth, is back online and resuming its mission to collect scientific data on the solar system and the interstellar space beyond.

Voyager 2 is sister craft to Voyager 1. Both have been traveling through the solar system — and now beyond it — for the last four decades. Together, they have transformed our understanding of our stellar neighborhood and are already revealing unprecedented information about the interstellar space beyond the Sun’s sphere of influence.

The fix is no mean feat: It takes 17 hours one-way to communicate with Voyager 2 from Earth, which is the second furthest away manmade object in space (Voyager 1 is the most far manmade object). That means a single information relay takes 34 hours.

The fact that Voyager 1 and 2 are still operational is amazing. When the news came that Voyager 2 had gone dark, I thought its mission was over. But NASA engineers “kept working the problem” and managed to fix it – from 11+ billion miles away.