Nasa has planned to keep its Voyager 2 spacecraft up and running in space for three more years despite running out of power.
The Voyager 2 was first launched in 1977 and helped astronomers study planets located far away from the Earth. The spacecraft has been investigating the outer bounds of the solar system for more than 45 years.
It also allowed scientists to probe how the sun’s outermost atmospheric layer — the heliosphere —protects Earth from its volatile environment.
Nasa was eyeing the closure of one of its five science instruments on the spacecraft as its power supply began to decrease. Scientists, in order to keep it afloat, sacrificed heaters and other unnecessary parts that drained power.
However, now scientists have come across a new way to use reserved power from a safety mechanism that controls the voltage of spacecraft.
Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said this past week, “The move will enable the mission to postpone shutting down a science instrument until 2026, rather than this year.”
Voyager 1 along with Voyager 2 are the only space vehicles to have travelled through the Heliosphere.
Ed Stone had spent over half on the Voyager programme where he oversaw the spacecraft churn out one discovery after another as they explored Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
“What it revealed was how complex and dynamic the solar system really is. Before Voyager, the only known active volcanoes were here on Earth,” Stone told NPR in 2017.
“Then we flew by Jupiter’s moon, Io, and it has 10 times the volcanic activity of Earth. Before Voyager, the only known oceans in the solar system were here on Earth. Then we flew by another moon of Jupiter, Europa, which it turns out has a liquid water ocean beneath its icy crust.”
The Voyager 2 is at a distance of 12.3 billion away from Earth.
Voyager 1 is 14.7 billion miles away from Earth and is also approaching its date of expiry.
Linda Spilker, the Voyager program’s project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Lab, said in a statement that “the science data that the Voyagers are returning gets more valuable the farther away from the Sun they go, so we are definitely interested in keeping as many science instruments operating as long as possible.”
Meanwhile, Nasa is trying to keep the legacy of Voyager intact. Officials and other experts are jumping in from different groups suggesting new and expansive proposals for a new, long-term space investigation.