NASA Shuts Off Instrument on Voyager 1 to Keep Spacecraft Operating - NASA Science
science.nasa.gov
On April 17, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California sent commands to shut down an instrument aboard Voyager 1 called the

Engineers are confident that shutting down the LECP will give Voyager 1 about a year of breathing room. They are using the time to finalize a more ambitious energy-saving fix for both Voyagers they call “the Big Bang,” which is designed to further extend Voyager operations. The idea is to swap out a group of powered devices all at once — hence the nickname — turning some things off and replacing them with lower-power alternatives to keep the spacecraft warm enough to continue gathering science data.

  • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zipEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    I was actually looking into this a little bit recently and it turns out the Voyager spacecraft launched with 23 watt radio transmitters but at the distance it takes a 72 meter dish to capture the signal and at its capture it is one attowatt. I don’t remember my system right offhand, but it’s something like a billionth of a billionth of a watt. It’s stupidly small.