The Voyager probes are the two farthermost contrived objects ever , both now traveling ininterstellar spaceafter having been launched in 1977 just 16 day apart on a mission to take flight by Jupiter and Saturn ( as well as Uranus and Neptune for Voyager 2 ) .
Despite having been in quad for almost 42 years , the spacecraft keep to work . This is longer than any other ballistic capsule in story . And now , NASA has come up with a plan to squeeze as much science from them as potential before they stop control .
The craftsmanship are nuclear power , which intend they use a radioisotope thermoelectric generator to produce heat and electrical energy to power the instruments and keep them at a good useable temperature . There is enough radioactive juice left to course Voyager 1 until 2025 and Voyager 2 until at least next year . The discrepancy in end date is because Voyager 2 has an supererogatory instrumental role equate to its twin .
To hold open muscularity , the squad has now decided to turn off the heating to the cosmic ray subsystem instrument ( CRS ) on Voyager 2 . This is the tool that substantiate last November the probe was no longer within the heliosphere and had finally crossed into interstellar space . The legal document is now at -59 ° C ( -74 ° F ) but it continues to exercise . That is well below the broken tested temperature for the CRS , and it joins theultraviolet spectrometerin being surprisingly springy .
" It ’s unbelievable that Voyagers ' instruments have proved so hardy , " Voyager Project Manager Suzanne Dodd , from NASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory , articulate in astatement . " We ’re majestic they ’ve withstood the test of prison term . The long lifetimes of the spacecraft intend we ’re dealing with scenario we never conceive we ’d come across . We will carry on to explore every option we have for keep the Voyagers doing the unspoiled science possible . "
The choices the team is making are not easy . To do the best they can to research beyond the influence of the Sun , they have to decide for a longer life-time with fewer instrument . extra instruments will likely be flip-flop off rather rather than later .
" Both Voyager probes are exploring regions never before chaffer , so every twenty-four hours is a 24-hour interval of uncovering , " said Voyager Project Scientist Ed Stone , who is base at Caltech . " Voyager is going to keep surprising us with new insights about deep place . "
It is all-important that the heater is kept on the fuel lines to the thruster as those are key to keep maintaining the guile ’ antenna pointing at Earth . The information we get fromVoyager 1 and Voyager 2takes , respectively , 20 hour and 10 arcminute and 16 hours and 40 minutes .
