After four and a half decades in service, it seems that the lifespan of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 is coming to an end. In a new piece that hit Scientific American this week, it was revealed that NASA is tending to shut down systems currently aboard the two spacecraft. If all goes well, turning off the selected instruments will preserve enough power for the probes to continue transmitting data until 2030 or so. With no changes to the instruments, the vessel is expected to disconnect in 2025.
“We’re 44 and a half years old,” physicist Ralph McNutt told the magazine. “So we’ve done 10 times the guarantee of the damn things.”
Voyager ships first set sail to explore the farthest reaches of our solar system, in the hope of scientists capturing vision of Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, and Uranus. The two spacecraft were launched in the summer of 1977 and both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have exceeded the wildest expectations of researchers.
The probes have given scientists the first views of the moons of these distant planets, with Voyager 2 becoming the first spacecraft to fly over Uranus and Neptune. So far, the boat is the only probe to make this trip.
“Four years on, that was the main mission,” added Suzanne Dodd, project manager with the launch of Voyager. “But if an engineer had the option of placing a piece that was 10 percent more expensive, but that wasn’t something that was needed for a four-year mission, he just went ahead and did it. And no they would necessarily tell the management.
45 years after launch, both boats are in perfect working order. In 2012, Voyager 1 even became the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space, a part of the cosmos outside our immediate solar system. Voyager 2 reached interstellar space six years later, still transmitting data to Earth scientists.
Most famous, however, is that the Voyager project also included two records embedded with data if extraterrestrial life managed to get its hands on the probes. These records include images of the wildlife of the Earth, including various members of the human race. The records also include a recording of Concert no. 2 by Bach and “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry. The records also carry a message from then-President Jimmy Carter.
“We hope to one day, after solving the problems we face, join a community of galactic civilizations,” Carter says on the record. “This record represents our hope and our determination, and our goodwill in a vast and impressive universe.”