NASA downshifts Voyager 1 instrument to stretch its interstellar voyage
TL;DR Summary
NASA engineers shut down the Low-energy Charged Particles (LECP) instrument on Voyager 1 on April 17 to conserve dwindling nuclear power, allowing the spacecraft to continue studying the interstellar medium beyond the solar system. Voyager 2’s LECP was silenced earlier in 2025, and only a handful of instruments remain active on both Voyagers. Voyager 1 is currently more than 15 billion miles (about 24 billion kilometers) from Earth, making it the farthest human-made object, and the instrument shutdown is part of a planned retirement sequence to maximize science as the power supply declines.
- NASA shuts down Voyager 1 instrument to keep probe exploring interstellar space Space
- NASA Shuts Off Instrument on Voyager 1 to Keep Spacecraft Operating NASA Science (.gov)
- NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft loses another instrument to save power Scientific American
- Nasa’s interstellar space probe Voyager 1 is losing power Yahoo
- The Little Probe That Could: Why Voyager 1 Matters, and Why NASA Just Switched Part of It Off NPR
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