NASA has shut one of the Voyager 2 spacecraft’s science instruments down to save on its low energy sources. Since Voyager 2 launched in 1977, the probe is now more than 13 billion miles above Earth in interstellar space. On 26 September, mission engineers switched off the Plasma Science (PLS) experiment that had been monitoring solar winds. The spaceship is powered by three radioisotope thermoelectric generators that turn the heat from the melting plutonium into electricity. Even with this energy-saving update, NASA anticipates Voyager 2 will continue to run at least one instrument into the 2030s.
Voyager 2 and its sister, Voyager 1, are the only human spacecraft to have passed into interstellar space, and they are still transmitting distinctive data from beyond the heliosphere, the solar system’s outermost layer that is shaped by the Sun’s solar wind. The PLS experiment, whose data about the solar wind confirmed Voyager 2’s removal from the heliosphere in 2018, was particularly pivotal. But, with its current location, the probe was already limited in its capacity to gather this kind of data.
The shutdown is the latest in a string of energy-saving actions over the decades as both Voyagers get older and their plutonium fuel runs out. NASA is delicately monitoring the surplus power supply in order to sustain missions for as long as possible. But even with the instrument turned off, Voyager 2 is one of the most important science probes in interstellar space and will continue to report scientific findings into the 2030s, helping to guide humanity into this uncharted world.
Work Cited
- Wattles, Jackie. “Voyager 2 Shuts Down Science Experiment as Power Stores Dwindle.” CNN, 2 Oct. 2024, www.cnn.com/2024/10/02/science/voyager-2-plasma-nasa-experiment-power/index.html
