NASA to power down the mighty Voyager space probes
In 1977, NASA launched two spacecraft, Voyager 1 and 2, on a grand tour of the solar system and into the mysteries of interstellar space. Attached to each of these probes is a golden phonograph record containing a message for any extraterrestrial intelligence that might encounter it, perhaps billions of years from now. (I co-produced the first terrestrial vinyl release of the Voyager Golden Record.) These two astonishing spacecraft far exceeded their life expectancy and have continued to transmit valuable scientific data back home. Now though, it's time for NASA to thoughtfully begin powering down each system in a very thoughtful and process order to hopefully eke out a few more years of communication with Earth. If all goes as planned, we'll still hear from them until about 2030. From Scientific American:
"We're at 44 and a half years," says Ralph McNutt, a physicist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), who has devoted much of his career to the Voyagers. "So we've done 10 times the warranty on the darn things."[…]
