Like what are the issues they are fixing that can be fixed remotely? I just envision being able to fix a car you can’t get your hands on. How is that possible?
In: Engineering
Sure they can not directly affect the hardware, but they can send a new software to the satellite. That way they can either work around broken things or let the hardware do things that maybe fix some issues.
To stay in the car analogy: If the speedometer in your car is broken, the NASA is maybe not be able to repair it remotely. But they can disable the original speedometer and maybe reprogram your car radio to display your current speed. That is not ideal and never intended like that, but it can help you to continue your expensive mission for a few years more.
Or if you can not look through your windshield anymore, the NASA can try to move your wipers very quickly remotely and hope that it fix your problem. If this is not possible, its maybe possible to work around the problem and maybe use parking assist cameras to look at the street.
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