✉news ScienceSpace Policy first seen 1 d ago, last 1 d ago, peak #16
How NASA keeps Voyager 2 powered billions of miles away
Original: How NASA is powering the Voyager 2 probe from a galaxy away
NASA is still drawing power for the Voyager 2 probe, nearly 50 years after its 1977 launch and now more than 12 billion miles from Earth. The spacecraft runs on plutonium-238 in radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which slowly lose output, so engineers ration electricity by shutting down instruments to keep it communicating through the Deep Space Network.
Why now: Interest in space exploration and the remarkable longevity of the Voyager missions keeps resurfacing as NASA manages the aging probe's dwindling power supply.
NASAVoyager 2Deep Space Network
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