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NASA plans “Big Bang” operation to save energy and extend the mission of the Voyager Probes, which have been operating for almost 50 years in interstellar space.
For almost half a century wandering through space, the Voyager Probes now face their most silent — and perhaps most decisive — battle. With energy reserves near their minimum limit and instruments being shut down one by one, NASA is preparing a risky technical maneuver, dubbed “Big Bang”, to try and ensure at least one more year of science at the frontiers of the solar system. Tests begin between May and June 2026, according to information from Olhar Digital.
Almost 50 years later, why are the missions at their limit?
When Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 left Earth in 1977, no one imagined they would still be active in 2025. The original mission envisioned the study of the solar system’s giant planets. What came next exceeded all expectations.
The central problem today is energy. The probes are powered by nuclear generators that, over time, inevitably lose capacity. According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the drop reaches four watts per year — and this pace does not stop.
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Of the 470 watts the spacecraft produced shortly after launch, only about 230 watts remain in each today. This data was presented by scientist Alan Cummings, co-investigator of the mission, at an event held in October 2024. To grasp the scale of the challenge: the transmitter alone, which sends signals to Earth, consumes approximately 200 watts. Very little is left for everything else.
Instruments hastily shut down to keep the signal active
Faced with this scenario, NASA has been making difficult decisions. In February 2025, the subsystem responsible for observing cosmic rays on Voyager 1 was shut down. Two months later, in April, another piece of equipment — the Low-Energy Charged Particles (LECP) instrument — was also deactivated.
Today, each probe operates with the bare minimum:
Voyager 1 — 2 active instruments:
- Magnetometer
- Plasma analyzer
Voyager 2 — 3 active instruments:
- Cosmic ray subsystem
- Magnetometer
- Plasma wave system
Meanwhile, JPL engineers are looking for alternatives to prevent more equipment from being sacrificed.
The “Big Bang” operation: saving 10 watts to gain a year
NASA’s boldest gamble has a name: “Big Bang”. The idea arose from the need to cut energy consumption without compromising the basic functioning of the spacecraft.
Currently, three devices are responsible for preventing the probes’ fuel lines from freezing in the extreme cold of interstellar space. The plan is to replace them with alternative systems that perform the same function while consuming about 10 watts less.
It seems little — but, in this context, it could mean everything. NASA estimates that if the operation works, it will be possible to postpone the shutdown of more scientific instruments by at least one year.
Tests will first be conducted on Voyager 2, between May and June 2026. If the result is satisfactory, Voyager 1 will undergo the same procedure afterward.
Record distance makes every decision even more delicate
Another factor that complicates any technical intervention is the absurd distance between the probes and Earth. Today, Voyager 1 is approximately 169.8 astronomical units from our planet — each astronomical unit is equivalent to the distance between Earth and the Sun, about 150 million kilometers.
Voyager 2, in turn, is about 143.1 astronomical units away.
At this scale, a simple command sent from Earth takes almost 24 hours to reach the spacecraft. Any error in the execution of the “Big Bang” operation cannot be corrected quickly — which considerably increases the risk of the maneuver.
What the Voyager Probes’ managers expect
The project manager at JPL, Suzanne Dodd, admitted in 2022 that the probes were operating with a margin of only five to six watts of available power. In an interview with the Space.com portal that same year, she acknowledged the uncertainty about the mission’s future, but stated that, “with a lot of luck,” the Voyagers could reach the 2030s still in operation.
Dodd also revealed a personal goal: to see the spacecraft reach 200 astronomical units from Earth around 2035.
Scientist Alan Cummings, at the October 2024 event, was direct in enumerating the technical risks: fuel lines on the verge of freezing, telescopes degraded by radiation accumulated over decades, and onboard computers aging without the possibility of replacement.
Despite everything, NASA maintains the expectation that both probes will reach the 50th anniversary of the missions in 2027 — a milestone that, a few decades ago, seemed completely out of reach.
Beyond the solar system’s frontiers
It is worth remembering that the Voyagers have already surpassed a barrier that no other spacecraft has reached. Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause — the boundary between solar influence and interstellar space — in 2012. Voyager 2 did the same in 2018.
Since then, the data transmitted by them is unique: there is no other source capable of providing direct information about this region of the cosmos. Therefore, each instrument that remains active represents science that simply cannot be obtained in any other way.
With information from Olhar Digital
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