Overview
- NASA shut off Voyager 1’s low‑energy charged particles instrument to prevent an automatic power cut after an unexpected post‑maneuver energy drop.
- The shutdown command traveled more than 23 hours to the probe some 25 billion kilometers from Earth, and the move is expected to add about a year of operating life.
- Two science tools remain active on Voyager 1 — a plasma wave detector and a magnetometer — and they continue to send data from interstellar space.
- A small drive motor on the particle instrument stays on at about 0.5 watts to keep the option open to spin and restart the sensor if power margins improve.
- Engineers are preparing a broader, higher‑risk “Big Bang” power plan to test first on Voyager 2 in the coming months, which could later be applied to Voyager 1 and may allow the particle sensor to return.