NASA Shuts Off Instrument on Voyager 1 to Keep Spacecraft Operating - NASA Science
science.nasa.gov
On April 17, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California sent commands to shut down an instrument aboard Voyager 1 called the

Engineers are confident that shutting down the LECP will give Voyager 1 about a year of breathing room. They are using the time to finalize a more ambitious energy-saving fix for both Voyagers they call “the Big Bang,” which is designed to further extend Voyager operations. The idea is to swap out a group of powered devices all at once — hence the nickname — turning some things off and replacing them with lower-power alternatives to keep the spacecraft warm enough to continue gathering science data.

  • nexguy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    2 days ago

    We haven’t sent anything away from the sun faster than Voyager 1. It’s still the fastest.

    • thebestaquaman@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      2 days ago

      Isn’t a major challenge of trying to surpass Voyager 1 that it had extremely good conditions for slingshotting off a lot of planets?

      • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zipEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        Yes, although we have ion thrusters now, so theoretically we could use something like that to get something going very fast over a long time. A little acceleration constantly over a long time goes a long way.