NASA Powers Down Voyager Instruments to Extend Historic Mission

The nearly 50-year-old spacecraft are shutting off select instruments to conserve energy and continue exploring interstellar space into the 2030s.

NASA has announced the shutdown of one instrument on each Voyager spacecraft to conserve power as their energy supplies diminish.
Voyager 2’s Low-Energy Charged Particle (LECP) instrument will be deactivated on March 24, while Voyager 1’s Cosmic Ray Subsystem (CRS) was turned off in February 2025.
The shutdowns aim to keep both spacecraft operational with at least one active instrument into the 2030s despite their aging plutonium power sources losing about four watts of output annually.
Launched in 1977, the Voyager probes have exceeded their original planetary mission and are now studying the interstellar medium billions of miles from Earth, with signal travel times exceeding 19 hours for Voyager 2 and 23 hours for Voyager 1.
NASA engineers continue troubleshooting and optimizing operations to maximize the scientific returns from these pioneering spacecraft, which remain humanity’s first interstellar explorers.