NASA shuts down a Voyager 2 instrument, hopes to save power for the spacecraft's future
On October 1, 2024, NASA teams announced they had shut down the Plasma Science Instrument aboard the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Currently traveling more than 12.8 billion miles (20.5 billion kilometers) from Earth, the probe still has four active scientific instruments to continue its mission to study the heliosphere, a region outside our solar system which the spacecraft entered on November 5, 2018. Since its launch on August 20, 1977, the spacecraft has been slowly losing power, which caused teams to shut down its instruments one by one. Doing so helps teams adjust the power consumption of this long-living spacecraft so that it can survive for more years ahead, while also continuing to gain more valuable data for teams here on the ground, which is estimated to do so until the 2030s.
The Plasma Science Instrument allows the spacecraft to measure the amount of plasma (electrically charged atoms) and the direction it flows. This specific instrument proved critical in determining that Voyager 2 left the heliosphere. In recent years where the spacecraft is now outside the heliosphere, this instrument has collected limited data due to its orientation relative to the direction in which plasma is flowing in interstellar space. This has caused teams to deem the instrument as not a priority anymore, which gave them the decision to shut down this specific instrument.
This procedure was relatively smooth but complicated as the spacecraft is far from Earth. When objects are farther from the sender, it takes a longer time for the signal to reach the receiver. Teams issued the command to shut down this instrument on September 26, 2024, when it took 19 hours to reach Voyager 2, and the confirmation signal took another 19 hours to reach Earth. After the confirmation was received back on the ground, it assured teams that the command was successfully done without incident and the probe continued to operate normally.
Despite this adjustment, the spacecraft continues to operate normally. This instrument truly played an important role in Voyager 2’s journey, especially the time it passed beyond the heliosphere. While this instrument may have been lost, another instrument on Voyager 2, the plasma wave subsystem, is still capable of measuring plasma density. Engineers continue to monitor Voyager 2’s health to optimize its remaining resources for continued exploration outside our solar system.
This is KYNNMASTER 123 for The Weekly Spaceman, see you in the next one! 😊
