A small motor used to rotate Voyager 1’s Low-energy Charged Particles sensor remains powered on at 0.5 watts to prevent it from seizing.
The Low-energy Charged Particles experiment had operated almost continuously since Voyager 1’s launch in 1977.
NASA will not apply the Big Bang fix to Voyager 1 before July 2026.
Voyager 1 is more than 15.7 billion miles (25.3 billion km) from Earth.
Voyager 1’s power levels dropped unexpectedly during a routine roll maneuver in late February 2026.
At one light-day from Earth, a message from NASA’s Deep Space Network will take 24 hours to reach Voyager 1 and another 24 hours for the response to return.
Voyager 1’s Low-energy Charged Particles experiment measured ions, electrons, and cosmic rays to map the frontier beyond the solar system.
The Big Bang strategy will replace older, power-hungry components with lower-power alternatives to keep Voyager 1’s electronics warm enough to function.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory deactivated Voyager 1’s Low-energy Charged Particles experiment on April 17, 2026.
NASA shut down Voyager 1’s Low-energy Charged Particles experiment to conserve the spacecraft’s dwindling power reserves.
Voyager 1’s automatic undervoltage fault protection would have shut down critical systems if its power level had fallen further.
Voyager 1’s power output decreases by about 4 watts per year because its plutonium-238 decays over time.
Voyager 1 is projected to reach a distance of exactly one light-day from Earth on November 15, 2026.
Voyager 1 uses a radioisotope thermoelectric generator that converts heat from decaying plutonium-238 into electricity.
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 used radioisotope power systems that generate heat and electricity from plutonium decay.
After its instruments stop operating, Voyager 1 will continue on a trajectory toward the Oort Cloud.
Voyager 1 continues to return data about conditions in the interstellar medium beyond the heliosphere.
In November, Voyager 1's radio signal will take roughly one day to travel from its location to Earth, corresponding to about 26,000 million kilometers of light-time distance.
Technicians restored useful communications with Voyager 1 after a period when the spacecraft was sending unintelligible data due to a computer problem.
The electrical power available on Voyager 1 decreases each year.