Voyagers 1 and 2 continue to create history every day to send data back to Earth, moving further into deep spaces. But accumulating distance will come all the time they can achieve. At one point, the batteries on each of the 47-year-old spacecraft eventually die, turning the scientific probe into an interstellar monument.
However, NASA is not yet ready to say goodbye, and is taking steps to take as many lives as possible from the pair. On March 5th, Voyager Mission Engineers from the Jet Propulsion Institute in Southern California confirmed that they had already turned off the Cosmic Ray subsystem experiments for Voyager 1. NASA plans to do the same for the Voyager 2’s low-energy charging particle equipment on March 24th. Voyager Project Manager Suzanne Dodd explained that cutting each program is a matter of life and death for both machines.
“The lower the power, the more it runs.” Dodd said in a statement. “Currently, if you don’t turn off each Voyager instrument, you probably only have a few more months of power before you have to declare the ‘end of the mission’. ”
Both Voyagers, released in 1977, contain an identical array of 10 instruments designed to collect unprecedented space information. Each probe is equipped with three radioactive isotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) fueled by damped plutonium-238. The RTG array offered Voyager 1 and 2 at about 470 watts at 30 volts when it first launched. Given the 87.74-year half-life of plutonium, they are currently operating at about two-thirds of their original forces.
NASA has since turned off most of the tools on each spacecraft. One is a recent one in October 2024 after completing Planet Flyby in the 1980s. For example, the recent deactivation of Voyager 1 has concluded a lengthy study of space radiation for decades. For years, the three telescope arrays of the Cosmic Ray Subsystem were essential to observing variations from protons and other deep energies and determining when and where Voyager 1 escaped from the Heliosphere.
Voyager 2’s impending power generation solution concerns low-energy charged particle equipment designed to measure ions, electrons, and other cosmic forces. Both the Cosmic Ray subsystem and the low-energy charged particle equipment rely on a 360-degree rotating platform with a 15.7 watt pulse motor every 192 seconds. The motor was originally tested up to 500,000 steps (sufficient to make sure it lasts until Voyager 2 has reached Saturn (August 1980) The motor completed more than 8.5 million levels at its closing date on March 24th.
Despite recent technical difficulties and declining energy reserves, Voyagers 1 and 2 have not yet been counted. Mission Engineers will continue to oversee Voyager 1’s low-energy charged particle equipment, as well as its magnetometer and plasma wave subsystem. The Voyager 2 magnetic field and plasma wave devices will also continue to operate in the near future, but its cosmic ray subsystem will be discontinued in 2026.
“The Navigator has been a deep space rock star since its launch and I want to keep it that way as long as possible,” Dodd said.
