NASA engineers found a way to free up power aboard Voyager 2, helping the nearly 50-year-old spacecraft continue its scientific work.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory team decided to simultaneously shut down certain powered components and replaced them with options that use less energy—while also making sure Voyager 2 stayed warm enough to function properly.
Decaying plutonium aboard the Voyager 2 produces electricity from radioisotope thermoelectric generators, and as that plutonium supply steadily diminishes, each spacecraft loses about 4 watts of available power each year.
After nearly half a century in space, both Voyagers (1 and 2) now have extremely limited power to spare. To keep them operating, mission controllers have increasingly had to shut down systems and equipment that are no longer essential.
An Extra Year of Science
Voyager Project Manager Suzanne Dodd commented that the choice to toggle these deeply integrated systems was an inherently risky decision with “no do-overs”.
That led the team to adopt the term ‘Big Bang’ for their plan.
Without the power-saving effort, the Voyager team would have needed to turn off yet another instrument aboard Voyager 2 before the end of 2026.
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Since 2024, the team has been forced to switch off two science instruments on each Voyager spacecraft (from among their 10 instruments).
The newly freed power is expected to keep the spacecraft’s three remaining instruments operating for at least one additional year. (Other instruments had been turned off previously as they were only used for planetary encounters.)
There is a bittersweet nature to managing these aging planetary probes, notes Dodd.
“Every watt saved now is a decision about what data humanity still gets to learn from out there.”
NASA says the team plans to carry out the same power-saving swap on Voyager 1, which is currently farther from Earth than Voyager 2, and the mission team expects to complete that work in the coming months.
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