Ambitious fix extends Voyager 2’s mission and could help its twin
NASA engineers have successfully implemented a power-saving 'Big Bang' fix for the aging Voyager 2 spacecraft. This adjustment allows the probe to continue operating its scientific instruments for an additional year despite dwindling power supplies.
Why it matters
Voyager 2 is a historic mission providing unique data from interstellar space; extending its life maximizes the scientific return from the farthest human-made objects in existence.
An ambitious effort to boost an aging probe on its journey through the uncharted territory of interstellar space seems to have found success. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have spent the last few months implementing what they nicknamed the “Big Bang” fix to buy the historic Voyager 2 spacecraft more time to continue its science mission. Voyager 2 is roughly 21.35 billion kilometers (13 billion miles) away from Earth, while its twin, Voyager 1, is about 25.40 billion kilometers (16 billion miles) away. Launched weeks apart in 1977 to embark on revolutionary flybys of planets in our solar system, they are the farthest active spacecraft from Earth, traveling beyond the heliosphere, the sun’s bubble of magnetic fields and particles that extends well beyond the orbit of Pluto.
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