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NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 are the only man-made objects to reach interstellar space.
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Both probes were launched in 1977 and may soon lose communication with Earth.
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NASA hopes to stay in touch with the probes at least until their 50th anniversary in 2027.
In 1977, NASA launched Voyager 1 and 2 free on what were meant to be four-year missions. For more than 46 years, the two have been delivering amazing science far beyond what has been the first team of researchers could expect.
From close-up views of Jupiter to spectacular views of The rings of Saturn, the Voyager probes helped shape our understanding of the solar system. Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft yet to visit Uranus and Neptune. They have traveled further from Earth than any other man-made object.
Solar wind away from the sun and interstellar wind flowing back to it forms a bubble called the heliosphere. In 2012, Voyager 1 went into business beyond the heliosphere in interstellar space. Voyager 2 followed in 2018.
There are two probes power draining slowly and will soon lose touch with Earth.
But NASA is coming up with unique solutions for keep in touch with both Voyagers.
“That’s the most important thing is to keep these spacecraft operating as long as possible,” Suzanne Dodd, NASA’s project manager for Voyager, told Business Insider.
Ten details
Early in their journey, the two spacecraft parted ways. Voyager 1 is now 15 billion miles from Earth, and Voyager 2 is 12 billion.
As the probes get further from our planet, their data becomes more and more valuable. The Voyagers are gathering information on charged particles in interstellar space, including their energy levels, abundance, and the direction of their magnetic fields.
“They’re looking at the effects of charged particles from our sun and measuring data in interstellar space and measuring how that data changes as it travels further away from us,” Dodd said.
She compares it to seeing the difference between waves breaking on the shore and smoothing out deeper in the ocean.
“You would never know unless you get further out in the ocean, how those waves change,” she said.
It would take another 50 years for another vehicle to reach interstellar space, Dodd said. That’s why the Voyagers are so valuable.
“They are doing very unique science,” she said.
NASA is turning tools to conserve power
The IS Nuclear powered Voyagers use radioisotope thermoelectric generators that convert heat from decaying plutonium-238 into energy. At first, the generators provided about 450 watts of power, Dodd said.
Every year, as the plutonium melts, the generators produce approx 4 watts less.
“They’re down to about 220 watts of power available,” Dodd said. The transmitters of the probes require about 200 watts to operate. Their instruments can use as much as 6 watts each.
Voyager 1 is currently running four instruments, and Voyager 2 five.
To conserve power, there are engineers heaters are turned off and power down other systems. “We’ve done a lot of clever engineering things to be able to keep these instruments running as long as possible, knowing that we have a limited power supply,” Dodd said.
“Something could fail that would be any kind of catastrophic,” she said.
There have been several near misses, for example when the two probes were almost the launch failed and when NASA they lost communication with Voyager 2 for a few weeks in the summer of 2023.
By 2026, NASA may have to turn off at least one of Voyager 2’s instruments.
“What we’re looking for is to complement the two spacecraft,” Dodd said. “You could keep one instrument running on one spacecraft but turn it off on another.”
On the road, it will be more difficult to make the choices about which instruments to continue. Dodd said the scientists are likely to keep power on the ones that absorb the least energy.
“And then it is also an evaluation of the science,” she said. “What is the most important science we get?”
Even after the spacecraft power down, they have one more mission left
When the spacecraft loses communication with Earth, it will be the end of the mission, Dodd said.
But the Voyagers will continue to travel, Dodd said, possibly for hundreds of thousands of years.
“They’re just going to float out into space and float around the center, traveling away with a gold record that we’ll hopefully find somewhere in the future.”
The golden records are phonographs that contain images, words and music explain human life to foreigners. Each Voyager probe has a copy.
Meanwhile, Dodd is not quite ready to say goodbye to the Voyagers.
“It’s amazing, going into our 47th year, just the whole record of discoveries that have been made on it,” she said.
The fact that there are two spacecraft means that there is a good chance that at least one of them will be able to communicate for a few more years, Dodd said.
“I’m very hopeful that we’ll make it to the 50th anniversary,” she said.
Read the original article on Business Insider
