floofloofVoyager 1 loses contact with NASA, turns on retro transmitter not used since 1981
Every few months there is a similar such story about this ancient marvel of technology and the people remotely maintaining it against all odds.
I can imagine a headline 100 years from now:
“Engineers are modifying Voyager 1 decorative panel bolt into a functional interstellar communicator”
each line of code is transmitted over a bandwidth that only supports 1/2 a bit, and it takes 3.5 years to reach the Voyager
This is the exact bit of data I was searching for, thanks a bunch.