NASA recently extended the mission life of the 48-year-old Voyager 2 probe. The spacecraft, which launched in 1977, operates on a nuclear power source that loses roughly four watts of output every year. With power margins now razor thin, engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory found a way to keep the probe operational by turning off non-essential systems.
By reallocating energy and shutting down secondary devices, the team identified a path to keep the three remaining science instruments running for at least another year. This avoids an immediate shutdown that seemed likely earlier in the season. These instruments provide data from interstellar space, a region the probe entered in 2018 after its historic tour of the outer planets.
Voyager 2 is currently located approximately 142 astronomical units from the sun. The process of managing its energy is a slow one, as a signal to the spacecraft takes nearly 24 hours for a one-way trip. The agency plans to apply similar power conservation techniques to its twin, Voyager 1, in the coming months as that probe faces similar energy constraints.
This longevity is the result of decades of careful remote maintenance and creative engineering. While the spacecraft is far beyond its original mission objectives, the data it transmits continues to provide a rare look at conditions outside our solar system.