NASA's Voyager 2 'Big Bang' Fix Extends Interstellar Mission by Two Years

NASA engineers have successfully executed a vital power conservation maneuver on the Voyager 2 spacecraft, prolonging its interstellar mission by a minimum of two years. Launched in 1977, Voyager 2 is currently more than 13 billion miles from Earth and depends on diminishing plutonium for energy, losing approximately four watts each year. In July, the team deactivated two heaters and a digital tape recorder, opting for lower-energy alternatives, including different heaters and a propulsion device that produces residual heat. This significant adjustment averted the shutdown of one of the probe's three remaining instruments before the year's end. Kareem Badaruddin, who manages the Voyager Interstellar Mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, expressed satisfaction with the year-long effort. The commands took around 40 hours to reach the probe, and while Voyager 1, which has only two functioning instruments, will undergo a similar adjustment, the differences between the two probes could influence results. Meanwhile, the New Horizons probe, which previously visited Pluto, is also making its way toward interstellar space, though it remains about six billion miles from Earth.