NASA Turns Off Science Instrument to Save Voyager 2 Power

[Waspie_Dwarf]

NASA Turns Off Science Instrument to Save Voyager 2 Power

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Engineers work on NASA’s Voyager 2 at JPL in March 1977, ahead of the spacecraft’s launch that August. The probe carries 10 science instruments, some of which have been turned off over the years to save power. Credit: NASA

Mission engineers at NASA have turned off the plasma science instrument aboard the Voyager 2 spacecraft due to the probe’s gradually shrinking electrical power supply.

Traveling more than 12.8 billion miles (20.5 billion kilometers) from Earth, the spacecraft continues to use four science instruments to study the region outside our heliosphere, the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun. The probe has enough power to continue exploring this region with at least one operational science instrument into the 2030s.

Read More: ➡️ NASA

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[pellinore]

Is this the craft with the two stranded astronauts? If so, it is pretty serious news.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

40 minutes ago, pellinore said:

Is this the craft with the two stranded astronauts? If so, it is pretty serious news.

No.

Despite the sensationalist headlines in the press the astronauts are not stranded, never were stranded and now have a new spacecraft attached to the International Space Station which will return them to Earth when their mission ends next year.

Voyager 2 is an uncrewed spacecraft, launched in 1977, to explore the outer planets of the solar system. It is way beyond the orbit of Pluto.