News · 20 April 2026
Voyager 1 switches off instrument to save power
Photo by Sai Kiran Belana on Unsplash
The long-running Voyager 1 spacecraft, 15 billion miles from Earth, has turned off an important data device to keep going. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory made the decision to shut down the Low-energy Charged Particles experiment due to low power. This instrument had operated since the probe launched in 1977 and provided vital data about interstellar space.
Reported by BBC Sky at Night Magazine · How we write briefs