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NASA to power down the mighty Voyager space probes

  [21]David Pescovitz 9:33 am Wed Jun 22, 2022
  image: NASA/JPL

  In 1977, NASA launched two spacecraft, Voyager 1 and 2, on a grand tour
  of the solar system and into the mysteries of interstellar space.
  Attached to each of these probes is a golden phonograph record
  containing a message for any extraterrestrial intelligence that might
  encounter it, perhaps billions of years from now. (I co-produced the
  [22]first terrestrial vinyl release of the Voyager Golden Record.)
  These two astonishing spacecraft far exceeded their life expectancy and
  have continued to transmit valuable scientific data back home. Now
  though, it's time for NASA to thoughtfully begin powering down each
  system in a very thoughtful and process order to hopefully eke out a
  few more years of communication with Earth. If all goes as planned,
  we'll still hear from them until about 2030. From [23]Scientific
  American:

    "We're at 44 and a half years," says Ralph McNutt, a physicist at
    the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), who
    has devoted much of his career to the Voyagers. "So we've done 10
    times the warranty on the darn things."[…]

    Voyager 2 now has five remaining functioning instruments, and
    Voyager 1 has four. All are powered by a device that converts heat
    from the radioactive decay of plutonium into electricity. But with
    the power output decreasing by about four watts a year, NASA has
    been forced into triage mode. Two years ago the mission's engineers
    turned off the heater for the cosmic-ray detector, which had been
    crucial in determining the heliopause transit [into interstellar
    space].

    Everyone expected the instrument to die.

    "The temperature dropped like 60 or 70 degrees C, well outside any
    tested operating limits," [JPOL planetary scientist and original
    Voyage team member Linda] Spilker says, "and the instrument kept
    working. It was incredible."

    The last two Voyager instruments to turn off will probably be a
    magnetometer and the plasma science instrument. They are contained
    in the body of the spacecraft, where they are warmed by heat emitted
    from computers. The other instruments are suspended on a
    43-foot-long fiberglass boom. "And so when you turn the heaters
    off," [Voyager project manage Suzanne] Dodd says, "those instruments
    get very, very cold."

    [24]Voyager 1 probe is sending back mysterious signals from
    interstellar space

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