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NASA Shuts Off Instrument on Voyager 1 to Keep Spacecraft Operating (science.nasa.gov)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Engineers are confident that shutting down the LECP will give Voyager 1 about a year of breathing room. They are using the time to finalize a more ambitious energy-saving fix for both Voyagers they call “the Big Bang,” which is designed to further extend Voyager operations. The idea is to swap out a group of powered devices all at once — hence the nickname — turning some things off and replacing them with lower-power alternatives to keep the spacecraft warm enough to continue gathering science data.

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[–] 58 points 4 months ago (5 children)

It is amazing they can detect and communicate to something with such a weak signal so far away.

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  • [–] 44 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    So far away that it takes an entire day to get the signal to it. The earth to the sun is 8 minutes.

    And somehow we can still talk to it. It's amazing.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    I was actually looking into this a little bit recently and it turns out the Voyager spacecraft launched with 23 watt radio transmitters but at the distance it takes a 72 meter dish to capture the signal and at its capture it is one attowatt. I don't remember my system right offhand, but it's something like a billionth of a billionth of a watt. It's stupidly small.

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