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NASA's Voyager 2 Marks 49 Years as Power-Saving Extends Mission
Voyager 2 hit 49 years in space as NASA extended its life by swapping power-draining instruments. The probe is 13.2 billion miles from Earth, still sending data from interstellar space.
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Voyager 2, the only spacecraft to have visited all four outer gas giants, crossed 49 years in space on August 20. The probe, launched in 1977, is now more than 13.2 billion miles from Earth, hurtling through interstellar space at 34,000 mph relative to the Sun.
NASA has been managing the aging probes' power budget carefully. Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 lose about 4 watts of power each year from their radioisotope thermoelectric generators. In August, the agency said it substituted some devices on Voyager 2 with lower-power alternatives while keeping the spacecraft warm enough to operate. The change should keep the probe's instruments running for at least another year, NASA said. The same swap is planned for Voyager 1.
Voyager 1, which launched on September 5, 1977, is roughly 16 billion miles away – about one light-day. Come November 2026, it will reach that milestone. The probe entered interstellar space in 2012, the first human-made object to cross the heliopause. Voyager 2 followed in 2018.