NASA is making sacrifices to keep the Voyager mission alive
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Summary
According to a report in TechCrunch, Voyagers 1 and 2 have been exploring interstellar space since they were launched in 1977, going further away from Earth than any other human-made objects.
However, their journey is now threatened by depleting nuclear batteries, causing NASA to take measures to preserve power, such as shutting down some of the probes’ science instruments, it added.
Both vessels’ low-energy charged particle instruments will be switched off, with the one on Voyager 1 going offline this month, and the other on Voyager 2 following in March.
Their cosmic ray subsystem experiments were shut down in February and will be switched off in 2026, meaning both craft will have three of their original ten science instruments still powered on.
“Electrical power is running low,” says Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd, who added that if it weren’t for these measures the Voyagers would only have “a few more months” of power.