The decision comes as the Voyager spacecraft face diminishing power supplies due to the gradual decay of their radioactive plutonium. Going where no spacecraft has gone before: NASA shuts down ...

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 ...

Each Voyager spacecraft launched with a nuclear power source made of plutonium. It was the sensible choice—engineers knew all along that the probes would be traveling much too far from the sun ...

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 ...

Each probe is powered by three radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) fueled by decaying plutonium-238. The RTG arrays offered Voyager 1 and 2 about 470 watts at 30 volts when they first ...

After launching into space almost 50 years ago, NASA's Voyager probes are reaching the end ... that could generate power through decaying Plutonium-238 isotopes. Heat released by the decaying ...

Launched between August and September 1977, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are the oldest and most distant probes built that ... Each RTG contains 24 plutonium-238 oxide spheres with a total mass of ...

The farthest spacecraft from home is back to making long-distance phone calls. NASA has confirmed that one of its greatest ever missions, Voyager 1 ... from its decaying plutonium dwindling ...

At the Los Angeles Air Force Base on October 18, the Space System Command (SSC), the U.S. Space Force’s acquisition arm, hosted a historic installation ... the Viking Mars landing and the Voyager ...

In the years to come, JPL will provide hospice care for the twin spacecraft. For one thing, the plutonium that fuels Voyager, set in canisters along an arm a safe distance from the electronics ...