How NASA Is Hacking Its Voyager 2 Probe To Extend 45-Year Deep Space Mission

NASA's Voyager 2 is getting an energy boost that will help keep its science instruments running until 2026 and perhaps beyond. This is all made possible by a rather simple hack on NASA's part.

Widely regarded as two of the most successful space probes ever, Voyager 1 and 2 have been plugging along for the past 46 years like Energizer bunnies. Launched in 1977, both have been instrumental in collecting valuable data with their onboard instruments and transmitting it back to Earth. Performing and travelling far beyond their original mission profile, NASA has taken the opportunity to extend their missions numerous times. However, their plutonium-based radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTG) power supply is finite. As power has continued to deplete, engineers at NASA have been able to extend the probes' running time by turning off non-essential components, such as heater cores and cameras.

However. Voyager 2 has been consuming more power compared to Voyager 1, due to the latter's lighter load draw from a malfunctioning instrument. With a shutdown imminent, the NASA team devised a way to extend Voyager 2's service life a few more years. By rerouting power from a safety mechanism, the engineers think that Voyager 2 can obtain one last kick in the pants until 2026. The safety mechanism was designed to activate if there was a voltage variation in the probe's circuits, but according to Suzanne Dodd, Voyager's project manager at JPL, “Variable voltages pose a risk to the instruments, but we’ve determined that it’s a small risk, and the alternative offers a big reward of being able to keep the science instruments turned on longer."

As for Voyager 1, the space agency will be making a decision whether to perform the same power reroute sometime next year. 

Voyager 1 and 2 are currently travelling through interstellar space 14 and 12 billion miles away from Earth, respectively, and past the heliosphere. Even now, they remain the furthest any human-made object has ever travelled, beaming back important live insight beyond our solar system.