More than 25 years ago, an abandoned NASA spacecraft fulfilled its mission, fell silent, and has since been hurtling around the sun, somewhere between the orbits of Earth and Mars. Now, a University of Arizona engineering student is trying to wake it up.

Jacob Gold, an undergraduate student majoring in aerospace engineering, is on a mission against time. If he can’t make contact with the SUV-sized space probe when it swoops by the moon this summer, it will disappear into the depths of space, not to return until Gold is 50 years old.

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