NASA’s Voyager Vehicles May Retire After 45 Years

Throughout the history of humanity, the interest in the stars has continued to increase. While the first people looked at the stars to understand the floods and migration times, they later formed religions using these celestial bodies, measured time, and worked to solve the secrets of the universe.

When the calendars showed August 20, 1977, NASA sent its vehicle called Voyager-2 into space. 16 days later, Voyager-1 took its place in outer space to accompany its twin sister. These vehicles, which are 19.3 billion and 23.3 billion km away from our planet, respectively, made history as the most distant man-made vehicles.

Houston, we have a problem

The radioactive isotope plutonium-238 is used as fuel inside Voyager vehicles. While this isotope radiated energy as it radiated, the vehicles that collected this energy via radioisotope thermoelectric generators continued their journey in space. These vehicles, which initially had 450 watts of power, lose 4-6 watts of power every year.

According to NASA engineers, approximately 200 watts of power is required for the vehicles to operate. Therefore, engineers who do not want to risk the vehicles try to extend the life of the vehicles by shutting down all the systems they do not consider necessary.

Still, the way we can go by turning off the systems or forcing the car to run to a minimum is also limited. First of all, these devices break down mechanically and over time. Over time these tools will become obsolete, but before that, scientists are doing their best to keep Voyager 1 and 2 up and running.

Voyager 1 and 2 completed their main mission of exploring space up to the gas giants in 1989.