{"id":849053,"date":"2026-08-07T05:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T05:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/849053\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T05:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T05:56:09","slug":"nasas-just-prolonged-voyager-2s-science-mission-with-a-big-bang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/849053\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Just Prolonged Voyager 2\u2019s Science Mission With A Big Bang"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Letting go is hard, especially when it concerns an irreplaceable space probe like the two Voyagers. Fortunately JPL engineers have managed to pull off <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/blogs\/voyager\/2026\/08\/04\/nasa-engineers-help-prolong-voyager-2s-science-mission\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">a \u2018big bang\u2019 switch<\/a> on Voyager 2, involving two heaters and another device that was kept on to keep providing sufficient heat to the spacecraft to allow it to keep functioning. After all, while the vacuum of space isn\u2019t cold, out in deep space you\u2019re radiating away all your precious heat.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately the official press release in exceedingly limited in details, but\u00a0The Register was kind enough to already nag a NASA spokesperson about it, which gives us <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theregister.com\/science\/2026\/08\/05\/voyager-2-cheats-the-power-budget-for-another-year\/5283247\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">some technical details<\/a>. The short version is that these heaters don\u2019t just keep the electronics within a happy operating range, they also keep the fuel lines warm and capable of providing fuel for attitude adjustments.<\/p>\n<p>With this switch apparently enough of the rapidly diminishing power from the RTG has been freed up that the Voyager 2 has just gained a whole extra year on its extended mission. The JPL team hopes to perform the same switch on the Voyager 1 spacecraft soon, giving it a similar boost to its expected lifespan, before both of them go quiet in the depths of space.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to [Mark Stevens] for the tip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Letting go is hard, especially when it concerns an irreplaceable space probe like the two Voyagers. Fortunately JPL&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,66],"class_list":["post-849053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}