NASA has shut down a Voyager instrument. Only these 4 remain.

The nuclear flare lasts a long time. But not forever.

The two Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977, convert the heat produced by the decay of radioactive plutonium-238 into electricity. Over the decades, NASA engineers have strategically turned off devices to extend the lifespan of Voyagers 1 and 2, which are more than 15 and 12 billion miles away, respectively. As their mission approaches half a centuryThat fuel is dwindling and the agency has just turned off another gadget on Voyager 2, leaving it with four remaining science devices.

“Mission engineers took steps to avoid turning off a scientific instrument for as long as possible, because the scientific data collected by the twin Voyager probes is unique,” ​​NASA said in a statement. statement. “No other man-made spacecraft has operated in interstellar space, the region outside the heliosphere. »

The gadget that the space agency shut down on September 26 is the “plasma science” instrument. He measured the flow of electrically charged atoms in space, particularly that of the solar wind – a ceaseless flow of these particles from the sun. But in 2018, Voyager 2 left our solar system’s heliosphere – a protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the sun and solar wind – and entered interstellar space. As the instrument was rarely used, it could be sacrificed.

The four remaining devices on Voyager 2 are:

– Cosmic ray subsystem (CRS): A particle detector that searches for the most energetic particles, such as those from other stars. “CRS does not attempt to slow down or capture super-energetic particles,” NASA explains. “They just completely cross the CRS. However, in passing, particles leave traces of their presence. »

– Low energy charged particles (LECP): Another particle detector, whose work overlaps with that of the cosmic ray subsystem. The LECP sixteen energetic particles of planets, stars and the great galaxy.

– Magnetometer (MAG): This instrument measures the magnetic field of the sun and previously did so with the magnetic fields of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

– Plasma wave subsystem (PWS): Two antennas that have observed plasma environments near the outer planets and are now doing so in interstellar space.

Voyager 1 also uses the last four devices.

The supply of flammable plutonium will produce progressively less energy because it will lose 4 watts each year. A toaster uses between 800 and 1,500 watts, and surprisingly, each Voyager ship only consumes and generates about 249 watts.

Yet even with this decreasing power, the craft can still communicate with NASA. To turn off the scientific plasma instrument, the agency broadcast a radio signal 12.8 billion kilometers through space. It took 19 hours to reach Voyager 2 and another 19 hours to send a return message.

The space agency expects the Voyagers to have enough fuel to operate with “at least one operational science instrument into the 2030s.” During this decade, the craft will likely lose its ability to communicate. Yet the larger interstellar communications mission – because every ship contains information about our civilization – will last billions of years.

Good speed.