Engineers extend Voyager-2’s life by tapping into reserve power supply
Engineers have begun using a backup power supply on the Voyager-2 spacecraft — launched in 1977 and presently traveling in interstellar space — in order to extend the life of one of its five instruments one additional year.
To help keep those instruments operating despite a diminishing power supply, the aging spacecraft has begun using a small reservoir of backup power set aside as part of an onboard safety mechanism. The move will enable the mission to postpone shutting down a science instrument until 2026, rather than this year.
The solution is only temporary, as the end of the mission is inevitable as its radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) was only designed to provide power for about a half century (!). As time passes its power supply slowly declines, forcing engineers in recent years to shut down other systems to allow the science instruments to operate. That all the other systems on both Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 remained operational until the end of their RTGs tells us how well these spacecraft were built by their 1970s creators.
Assuming this works, engineers will do the same thing on Voyager-1 sometime next year. In both cases, however, power from the RTGs will likely run out entire sometime in the next 5-10 years, ending the missions.
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Engineers have begun using a backup power supply on the Voyager-2 spacecraft — launched in 1977 and presently traveling in interstellar space — in order to extend the life of one of its five instruments one additional year.
To help keep those instruments operating despite a diminishing power supply, the aging spacecraft has begun using a small reservoir of backup power set aside as part of an onboard safety mechanism. The move will enable the mission to postpone shutting down a science instrument until 2026, rather than this year.
The solution is only temporary, as the end of the mission is inevitable as its radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) was only designed to provide power for about a half century (!). As time passes its power supply slowly declines, forcing engineers in recent years to shut down other systems to allow the science instruments to operate. That all the other systems on both Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 remained operational until the end of their RTGs tells us how well these spacecraft were built by their 1970s creators.
Assuming this works, engineers will do the same thing on Voyager-1 sometime next year. In both cases, however, power from the RTGs will likely run out entire sometime in the next 5-10 years, ending the missions.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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c/o Robert Zimmerman
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Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Hmmmm. I have done extensive reading on Voyager and I don’t recall anything about a power reserve. Any battery technology of the time, even Nickel Hydrogen batteries, would have perished long before now. I suspect that this reserve is a reserve in software only, allowing the engineers of today, to violate a safety margin put in by the original designers. I don’t want to cast a cloud of doom, but I certainly wouldn’t be fooling around with such a safety margin, especially on a spacecraft that has only one power supply… And upon actually reading the article, mid way through typing up my thoughts, it confirms right away what I suspected. I still wouldn’t be fooling around with the spacecraft’s safety settings just to get another year out of any single instrument. I would rather get ten years more science out of four instruments then two years of science out of five, and end up killing the spacecraft because I messed with the power supply. But I treat my own machinery very conservatively, I guess other engineers are more slipshod with theirs. I hope for the best though. If memory serves, both voyagers are due to run out of fuel before their power supplies completely die, so with luck, they will expend their fuel before the RTG’s can no longer power any of the instruments.
Hi Gealon,
A question, do the voyagers actually have any fuel left, and if so, for what?
I can’t imagine they need anything for course change…. to keep alignment with the deep space network?
This is fascinating stuff, and any links would be appreciated!
The Jupiter flyby inspired my love of space as a young lad, and Saturn, even more so! ( I collect national geographic space editions, and the voyager editions are extra special… It’s somehow so much better seeing those fantastic images in glossy colour than in pixels on a screen!)
Hello Lee;
The Voyager spacecraft both have a large, spherical tank of Hydrazine at their center, surrounded by the equipment bus. The fuel was used for minor course adjustments during the interplanetary part of the mission and for orienting the spacecraft. Now it is used solely for orienting the spacecraft. Every once in a while the vehicles have to perform a roll so that the magnetometers can be re-calibrated, that’s the single largest use of fuel now, if memory serves. Also if memory serves, they have enough fuel to last into the 2030’s. After that they won’t be able to keep their antennas pointed at Earth.
I would have to dig up some of the old research I did years ago in order to provide links. There was a great website that provided weekly reports of both Voyagers power and fuel status. I know the JPL website has some good stuff too. Like this one, that I totally did just dig up while typing: https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/
Robert, go ahead and check the link out first, if you are filtering anything.
It is not an additional power supply, but power management. There are few items they have turned off, one article mentioned some heaters, and they are still within their supply vs. demand numbers.
So Voyager 1 and 2 were launched in 1977. When is the next program going to be started?
Will it have launches of more devices to travel to more locations both along the protoplanetary disk and to offset vectors from the disc.
Will it have better instrumentation to provide better measurements of the interstellar medium?
Will each of these last longer? Will they have better communications equipment? Will they be re-programmable to allow for mission alteration?
Will it be part of a continuing program of vessels to continuously reach further out from our solar system?
Will all the money just go into a black hole like SLS?
Gealon,
I used to work in a space sciences laboratory, where we built scientific instruments for spacecraft. The scientists made the decisions about the science, and we engineers made it happen. The scientists were in charge during the mission. and we engineers were assigned to other projects. For Voyager, the principal investigator (lead scientist) most likely met with his other project scientists to set the priorities on what they wanted to do and to study, what to turn off and what to leave or turn on. This was the scientists’ choice, not the engineers. The engineers make it happen, not make the priority.
Edward, I want to run this by you and see if you agree. Apollo tech too clunky-new chips too sensitive…but late-70’s tech hit the sweet spot.
Jeff, the computers on V1 & V2, the two oldest continuously operating CPUs known to man, were remnants of the Apollo program. As for the instruments, they certainly benefitted from Apollo-era lessons learned.
Tom
Jeff Wright,
I’m not sure what you mean.
Apollo tech was used because the engineers understood it and it worked for their purposes. If it works, use it, and don’t fix it if it isn’t broken. Airplanes with internal combustion engines still use magnetos because they work reliably.
If the late 1970s tech was the sweet spot, then why is the tech still being improved?
For half a century, rockets were improved in order to take more mass to orbit. These days, they are being improved in order to take mass to orbit more economically. The economics is currently the broken part of rocketry, and this is being fixed. The economic Falcon 9 is currently the most frequently flown rocket, flying almost twice per week (around once every 4-1/2 days).
ST: TOS se02ep13
>Spock will handle the power…
https://youtu.be/krmrpDUzcIk?t=52
@Gealon, thank you! Every day I learn something is a good day. Today is a good day! :-)