{"id":595868,"date":"2026-04-20T16:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T16:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/595868\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T16:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T16:50:08","slug":"nasas-interstellar-space-probe-voyager-1-is-losing-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/595868\/","title":{"rendered":"Nasa\u2019s interstellar space probe Voyager 1 is losing power"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/nasa\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Nasa;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Nasa&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Nasa<\/a> is rushing to find a solution to prevent its first interstellar spacecraft from running out of power.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Voyager 1, which launched in 1977, suffered a drop in power levels that forced mission operators to shut down one of its instruments as a temporary fix.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The US space agency said it is now working on a \u201cfar-out plan\u201d to extend the craft\u2019s lifespan and restore it to full operation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Voyager 1 is the most distant human-made object in existence, having become the first ever probe to leave the Solar System in 2012.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, which harvest electricity from decaying plutonium. This energy system means it loses 4 watts of power every year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">An unexpected low power issue was first detected during a planned roll maneuvre on 27 February, with mission engineers warning that any additional drop in power would trigger a protection system that would shut down components on the probe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Nasa said it shut down an instrument aboard the Voyager 1 craft, which is currently more than 25 billion kilometres (15 billion miles) from Earth, in order to prevent further issues while it works on a more permanent solution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cWhile shutting down a science instrument is not anybody\u2019s preference, it is the best option available,\u201d said Voyager mission manager Kareem Badaruddin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cVoyager 1 still has two remaining operating science instruments \u2013 one that listens to plasma waves and one that measures magnetic fields. They are still working great, sending back data from a region of space no other human-made craft has ever explored.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The instrument, called the Low-energy Charged Particles experiment, (LECP), has been operating almost continuously for 49 years, measuring low-energy charged particles like cosmic rays from the Milky Way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThe nuclear-powered spacecraft is running low on power, and turning off the LECP is considered the best way to keep humanity\u2019s first interstellar explorer going,\u201d Nasa said in an update.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThe instrument has provided critical data about the structure of the interstellar medium, detecting pressure fronts and regions of varying particle density in the space beyond our heliosphere. The twin Voyagers are the only spacecraft that are far enough from Earth to provide this information.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nasa is rushing to find a solution to prevent its first interstellar spacecraft from running out of power.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[259792,718,5568,259793,79,52366],"class_list":{"0":"post-595868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-interstellar-spacecraft","9":"tag-nasa","10":"tag-power","11":"tag-power-levels","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-voyager-1"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}