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NASA's Voyager probes shutting down some instruments to save power
The Voyager spacecraft rely on electricity generated from the heat of decaying plutonium, and both are losing an estimated 4 watts of power per year. “The Voyagers have been deep space rock ...
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Going where no spacecraft has gone before: NASA shuts down cosmic ray instrument on Voyager 2
The decision comes as the Voyager spacecraft face diminishing power supplies due to the gradual decay of their radioactive plutonium. "If we don't turn off an instrument on each Voyager now ...
Keeping Voyager Alive: NASA’s Project Scientist Faces Painful Choices as the Iconic Mission Nears Its End
Linda Spilker, the Voyager mission’s project scientist, spoke to Gizmodo about the challenges that come with operating the ...
KRDO1mon
The farthest spacecraft from Earth are shutting off instruments in interstellar space
The Voyager spacecraft rely on electricity generated from the heat of decaying plutonium, and both are losing an estimated 4 watts of power per year. “The Voyagers have been deep space rock ...
Smithsonian Magazine7d
How Far Can Voyager I Go?
Yet fans of NASA’s farthest-flung spacecraft can’t stop talking ... Although we often consider Pluto the end of the solar system, Voyager 1 is more than three times farther than that and ...
Hackaday1mon
The Long Goodbye: More Instruments Shut Down On The Voyagers As End Nears
Saying farewell is hard, and in the case of the Voyager 1 & 2 spacecraft doubly so, seeing as how they have been with us for more than 47 years. From the highs of the 1970s and 1980s during their ...
Times Union1mon
Radioisotope generators − inside the ‘nuclear batteries’ that power faraway spacecraft
Most RTGs are built using plutonium-238 as their source ... capture the power of RTGs quite like the Voyager missions. NASA launched the twin spacecraft Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 in 1977 to take ...