this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2026
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634
NASA Shuts Off Instrument on Voyager 1 to Keep Spacecraft Operating (science.nasa.gov)
submitted 1 day ago by vogi@piefed.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
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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.

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[–] nexguy@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

We haven't sent anything away from the sun faster than Voyager 1. It's still the fastest.

[–] thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Isn't a major challenge of trying to surpass Voyager 1 that it had extremely good conditions for slingshotting off a lot of planets?

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 2 points 10 hours ago

Yes, although we have ion thrusters now, so theoretically we could use something like that to get something going very fast over a long time. A little acceleration constantly over a long time goes a long way.