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.

  • ripcord@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    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.