Upcoming Hack to Keep NASA's Voyager 1 Alive Exploits a Quirk in Its 1970s Hardware

Key Points:

• NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is traveling through interstellar space at over 35,000 mph and is now more than 15 billion miles from Earth, with efforts underway to extend its operational life.
• Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab successfully performed a critical power-saving maneuver called the “big bang” on Voyager 2, toggling key components to conserve energy without damaging hardware in deep space.
• The power-saving technique exploits the waste heat from Voyager’s nuclear thermoelectric generators and aims to save about 10 watts per year, potentially allowing Voyager 1 to keep additional instruments, such as the Low-energy Charged Particles experiment, operational.
• Voyager 1, launched in 1977, is expected to reach a milestone this November by passing one light-day away from Earth, meaning signals will take over 24 hours to travel between Earth and the probe.
• NASA mission managers are optimistic Voyager 1 will continue functioning through its 50th anniversary in 2027, maintaining its unique role in exploring uncharted regions of interstellar space.