NASA’s twin Voyager probes, launched 47 years ago, are shutting off some science instruments in an effort to conserve power and extend their missions. The decision comes as both probes approach the end of their power supplies, which rely on electricity generated from decaying plutonium.
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 will continue to operate with three functioning science instruments each, including plasma wave subsystems, magnetometers, and cosmic ray subsystems that measure high-energy particles. The team has shut off other instruments, such as the low-energy charged particle instrument on Voyager 2, in previous years due to performance degradation.
The probes are now exploring uncharted territory in interstellar space, with Voyager 1 over 15 billion miles from Earth and Voyager 2 nearly 13 billion miles away. The team plans to shut off additional instruments in the future, but NASA experts believe the probes will be able to conserve enough power to keep operating into the 2030s.
“We want to keep it that way as long as possible,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at JPL. “But electrical power is running low.” The team’s goal is to ensure the probes continue their trailblazing journeys, exploring regions of space where no spacecraft has gone before.
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/05/science/voyager-probes-turn-off-instruments/index.html