Carefully choreographed shutdown gives probe's three remaining instruments more time
Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have eked out a little more life for instruments aboard the veteran Voyager 2 probe thanks to a power-saving effort called the "Big Bang."The procedure involved switching several powered devices at once, turning some off and replacing others with lower-power alternatives while keeping the spacecraft warm enough to function. We don't envy whoever had to press the Send button and then wait to discover whether the commands had worked or left Voyager 2 out of action. The procedure appears to have succeeded and, according to NASA, "the savings provide power to keep its instruments operating for at least another year."Engineers plan to perform the same procedure on Voyager 1 in the coming months. Voyager 1 is farther from Earth than Voyager 2.
In 2027, it will be half a century since the probes were launched, and power is running low. The Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTG) on both generate electricity by converting heat from decaying plutonium. The probes lose approximately 4 watts of available power each year, which, over half a century, means the spacecraft are running on fumes, electrically speaking.
