Voyager 2: A Spacecraft's Power Challenge in Interstellar Space

NASA has turned off one of Voyager 2's science instruments to save power. This spacecraft, launched in 1977, is now over 12 billion miles from Earth. It uses four science tools to study the space beyond our solar system. NASA thinks it can keep running one instrument until the 2030s if they turn off others first. The plasma science instrument was chosen to be turned off. This tool has four "cups" that collect data about charged particles, called plasma. Three cups face the sun and one faces away. The instrument helped Voyager 2 detect it had left the solar system in 2018.

NASA engineers are careful when changing how the spacecraft works to avoid problems. They confirmed the command to turn off the instrument was successful. The usefulness of this tool was limited because three cups stopped working after leaving the heliosphere, the sun's influence. Voyager 2 only gets useful data from the one active cup once every three months during a spin. Both Voyager 1 and 2 are powered by plutonium that loses power each year. In the past, they turned off some instruments to save power and extend their lifespan. NASA will watch Voyager 2's resources closely to decide when to turn off another instrument to keep delivering science from this "final frontier."

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