{"id":1237526,"date":"2025-03-06T11:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T16:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1237526"},"modified":"2025-03-06T11:15:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T16:15:00","slug":"nasa-is-making-sacrifices-to-keep-the-voyager-mission-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1237526","title":{"rendered":"NASA is Making Sacrifices To Keep the Voyager Mission Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>NASA has begun shutting down science instruments aboard the twin Voyager spacecraft to extend their 47-year journey through interstellar space, officials said. Voyager 1&#8217;s cosmic ray subsystem was deactivated on February 25, while Voyager 2&#8217;s low-energy charged particle instrument will be shut down on March 24. Both spacecraft will then operate with just three of their original ten science instruments. <\/p>\n<p>The radioisotope power systems aboard the Voyagers lose approximately 4 watts annually, threatening to end their mission within months without intervention. &#8220;Electrical power is running low,&#8221; said Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd. &#8220;The Voyagers have been deep space rock stars since launch, and we want to keep it that way as long as possible.&#8221; NASA engineers believe these measures could enable the probes to continue operating into the 2030s, far beyond their initial five-year design life.<\/p>\n<div class=\"share_submission\" style=\"position:relative;\">\n<a class=\"slashpop\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=NASA+is+Making+Sacrifices+To+Keep+the+Voyager+Mission+Alive%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fscience.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F03%2F06%2F1615227%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/twitter_icon_large-89.png\"><\/a><br \/>\n<a class=\"slashpop\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fscience.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F03%2F06%2F1615227%2Fnasa-is-making-sacrifices-to-keep-the-voyager-mission-alive%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/facebook_icon_large-91.png\"><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/science.slashdot.org\/story\/25\/03\/06\/1615227\/nasa-is-making-sacrifices-to-keep-the-voyager-mission-alive?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed\">Read more of this story<\/a> at Slashdot.<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/slashdot.org\/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=23629115&amp;smallembed=1\" style=\"height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NASA has begun shutting down science instruments aboard the twin Voyager spacecraft to extend their 47-year journey through interstellar space, officials said. Voyager 1&#8217;s cosmic ray subsystem was deactivated on February 25, while Voyager 2&#8217;s low-energy charged particle instrument will &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1237526\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,44,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1237526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-slashdot","category-technology","category-unfiltered-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1237526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1237526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1237526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1237526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}