Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have squeezed more life out of Voyager 2 with a high-stakes power-saving procedure nicknamed the 'Big Bang' — and it worked.

The procedure, described by The Register on August 5, involved switching several powered devices at once: turning some off and replacing others with lower-power alternatives, all while keeping the spacecraft warm enough to function. The tricky part was that there is no do-over: commands take more than 23 hours to reach the probe, so the team had to press 'send' and wait to learn whether the maneuver had succeeded or left Voyager 2 out of action.

According to NASA, the procedure appears to have succeeded, and 'the savings provide power to keep its instruments operating for at least another year.' A NASA spokesperson explained that the process involved two heaters and a device that was kept on because its residual heat was in the right location and it used less power than the nearby heater — a three-for-three swap that kept the spacecraft (and critically, its fuel lines) warm while drawing less power. Similar swaps in the past were 'usually just 1:1,' the spokesperson said.

Voyager 2 now has three science instruments still running, and the maneuver pushed back the point at which another would have to be switched off — without it, a shutdown would have been needed before the end of 2026.

The same procedure is planned for Voyager 1 in the coming months. Voyager 1 is down to just two operating instruments after its power level dropped unexpectedly during a roll maneuver on February 27, forcing engineers to switch off its Low Energy Charged Particles (LECP) experiment on April 17. NASA hopes the LECP might even be restored after Voyager 1 gets its own Big Bang.

Both probes run on Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators that convert heat from decaying plutonium into electricity, losing roughly 4 watts of available power every year. In 2027 they will mark half a century in space — a remarkable run for spacecraft designed for five-year missions to Jupiter and Saturn.

Sources