How Voyager engineers found two more years in a 50-year-old power budget
"The problem with turning things off in serial is that you get the power, but you don't get the extra thermal heat when you do that… and all we really have left to turn off is instruments," Dodd explains.A few years earlier, the team had established that the instruments could survive without their heaters. It had now reached the point where keeping the remaining instruments powered would require shutting one down.That prompted the approach that became the Big Bang. The draw of each component had been documented, but the figures were nearly 50 years old and might contain some hidden margins.
- ▪"The problem with turning things off in serial is that you get the power, but you don't get the extra thermal heat when you do that… and all we really have left to turn off is instruments," Dodd explains.A few years earlier, the team had es
- ▪It had now reached the point where keeping the remaining instruments powered would require shutting one down.That prompted the approach that became the Big Bang.
- ▪The draw of each component had been documented, but the figures were nearly 50 years old and might contain some hidden margins.
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| Canonical URL | https://www.theregister.com/science/2026/08/12/how-voyager-engineers-found-two-more-years-in-a-50-year-old-power-budget/5284906 |
| Publication time | Wed, 12 Aug 2026 14:02:00 +0200 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-08-12T12:06:35.782Z |
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Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
(function() { let windowUrl = window.location.href; windowUrl = windowUrl.substring(windowUrl.indexOf('?') + 1); let messageElement = document.querySelector('.shareableMessage'); if (windowUrl && windowUrl.includes('code') && windowUrl.includes('expires')) { messageElement.style.display = 'block'; } })(); science How Voyager engineers found two more years in a 50-year-old power budget Even two-tenths of a watt matters when your spacecraft launched in 1977 Richard Speed Richard Speed MICROSOFT ECOSYSTEM REPORTER Published wed 12 Aug 2026 // 13:02 UTC SPACE EXTENDERS Adding a few extra years to Voyager 2's prodigiously long life was the result of an effort that began more than a year ago, as engineers and managers pondered how to eke out a few more watts from the spacecraft's dwindling…
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