Children's science fiction book: forgotten title & author

This book was published before 1963. A long-crashed spaceship is discovered on Earth.
While it's being explored, it comes to life and flies off to "home planets", with the explorer(s),
arriving at a spaceport which was almost abandoned/nonfunctional. These things happen over
time! The solution for getting back to Earth: run the navigation tape in reverse.

I posted this puzzle before, but I can't find messages for the date I posted it. Apologies!
Your help is most appreciated.

Maybe Galactic Derelict by Andre Norton. There, time travel is involved in addition to space travel-the spaceship is brought to the present day from ~10,000 years ago, then takes off.

That sounds right. I'll check and let you know.

Please do. This was one of my favorites at age 10, am interested to find new fans.

For finding your previous post, rather than trying to remember the date (especially on a high-traffic group like this one), using the "Started by you" option on the left sidebar may help narrow things down.

Thanks. Lorax. Never noticed that. (forehead slap)
I wonder why they don't put it on the Topics list page?

That's the right book. Many thanks!

Happy to help.