A spaceship cannot live among the stars forever.

But NASA isn’t quite ready to say goodbye to its 1970s Voyager 2, the second-longest spacecraft to explore beyond the solar system’s outermost planets. It slowly dies as it races through interstellar space at over 34,000 miles per hour.

The Voyager engineering team has already disabled heaters and other energy vampires that are not critical to flight. However, the situation has become more dire. With spacecraft power supply depleted, NASA was on the verge of shutting down one of the five onboard science instruments. This would mark the beginning of the end for long-term scientific mission(will open in a new tab).

At the very last moment, the engineers came up with new plan(will open in a new tab) to squeeze more life out of Voyager 2. At a distance of 12 billion miles, they pinpointed a hidden fount of energy in one of its parts that could prevent them from shutting down a key tool for another three years.

“The scientific data that Voyagers return becomes more valuable the farther they get from the Sun, so we are definitely interested in keeping as many scientific instruments as possible for as long as possible,” said Linda Spilker, project scientist Voyager in NASA Jet Propulsion. laboratories in a statement(will open in a new tab).

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Both Voyager 2 and its twin Voyager 1 are almost 45 years old, much older than their satellites. original lifespan(will open in a new tab). They were intended to study Jupiter and Saturn, their satellites and the rings of Saturn. For a two-planet mission, they were only built for five years.

After initial success, engineers doubled mission objectives(will open in a new tab) include two more planets: Uranus and Neptune. Together they explored four planets, 48 ​​moons and many planetary magnetic fields and rings.

The Voyager spacecraft is currently exploring the limits of the Sun’s influence. These are the first probes to travel outside the so-called “heliosphere,” the Sun’s protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields. Gemini is helping scientists answer questions about their role in protecting the Earth from radiation found in the interstellar medium. Scientists define interstellar space(will open in a new tab) as a place outside the constant flow of solar matter affecting its surroundings.

In this diagram, NASA pinpoints the location of the two Voyager spacecraft in interstellar space.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech illustration.

Engineers have found an additional supply of energy in a part designed to protect scientific instruments from changes in their voltage. Electrical fluctuations can potentially damage appliances, so the regulator runs a backup circuit to access the reserved power of its generators. Voyager 2’s instruments will now use the energy instead of putting it aside.

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Both Voyager probes are powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators that convert heat from decaying plutonium(will open in a new tab) into electricity. This process produces less energy every year.

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As for Voyager 1, it already uses one less scientific instrument than its brother because one of its instruments failed early in the mission. This means NASA won’t have to decide whether to turn off another one until next year. If this new power strategy works for Voyager 2, the team will consider doing the same for Voyager 1.

Although Voyager 2 now flies without a safety net, engineers are confident that its electricity is relatively stable, which poses little risk to onboard instruments.

“The alternative offers a big reward for keeping the science instruments on longer,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager. in a statement(will open in a new tab). “We’ve been watching the spacecraft for several weeks now and this new approach seems to be working.”