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 β€œthe Big Bang,” which is designed to further extend Voyager operations. The idea is to swap out a group of powered devices all at once β€” hence the nickname β€” turning some things off and replacing them with lower-power alternatives to keep the spacecraft warm enough to continue gathering science data.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 74 points 6 months ago (4 children)

For roughly three milliseconds I thought to myself they shoulda used solar panels instead.

"Oh, wait...."

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 39 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Well they could power a lamp that shines on the solar panels.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments