NASA shuts down instrument on Voyager 1 probe to manage power

Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY

Updated Tue, April 21, 2026 at 1:48 PM UTC

5 min read

NASA has shut down one of the science instruments on board the iconic Voyager 1 space probe in an effort to extend the life of humanity's first interstellar vehicle .

The decision was made as power flags on the aging spacecraft, one of a pair of spacecraft that launched nearly 49 years ago on a trailblazing mission to explore our solar system and beyond .

“While shutting down a science instrument is not anybody’s preference, it is the best option available,” Kareem Badaruddin, Voyager mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said in a statement.

The crew of Artemis II captured a breathtaking image of a celestial event known as an "Earthset," in which the Earth dropped below the lunar horizon. The image is reminiscent of the iconic "Earthrise" photo that NASA astronaut Bill Anders captured in 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission that showed our planet rising on the lunar horizon.

Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman of NASA took this stunning photograph of Earth from the Orion spacecraft's window on April 2. The image is reminiscent of the iconic "blue marble" image captured during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

In this new image from the Artemis II crew, NASA explains that what is depicted is the "divide between night and day, known as the terminator, cutting across Earth."

William Anders, a NASA astronaut on the historic Apollo 8 mission around the moon, took the iconic “Earthrise” photo while in lunar orbit on Dec. 24, 1968.

The first photograph of the Earth taken by an astronaut standing on the lunar surface, taken during the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969.

One of the most well-known photographs of Earth, the "blue marble" image was taken by the crew of the final Apollo mission (Apollo 17) as the crew made its way to the moon in 1972.

Voyager 1's 1990 photo of Earth, widely referred to as the "pale blue dot," was taken at a distance of 3.7 billion miles from the sun, making it the first photo taken beyond all the planets in our solar system. This image was created in 2020 or the 30th anniversary of the iconic picture using modern image-processing software and techniques to revisit the well-known Voyager view.

Because the International Space Station orbits so close to Earth's atmosphere (about 250 miles high,) the outpost and the astronauts who have lived aboard it have been the source of plenty of spectacular photos of our planet for 25 years. This recent photo, taken April 6, 2026, shows auroras glowing over the Indian Ocean.

NASA astronaut Chris Williams is pictured outside the International Space Station during a March 18, 2026 spacewalk with Earth in the background.

The devastating Hurricane Milton, a Category 4 storm at the time of this photograph, is pictured Oct. 8, 2024 in the Gulf of Mexico (renamed the Gulf of America) off the coast of Yucatan Peninsula from the International Space Station as it orbited 257 miles above.

The Soyuz MS-27 crew spacecraft is pictured Sept. 14, 2025 docked to the International Space Station's Prichal module as the orbital outpost soared 257 miles above a gleaming blue Atlantic Ocean, north of the Dominican Republic.

On December 16, 1992, eight days after its encounter with Earth, the Galileo spacecraft looked back from a distance of about 3.9 million miles to capture this remarkable view of the moon in orbit about Earth.

In honor of Earth Day, see these photos of our planet from space

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The crew of Artemis II captured a breathtaking image of a celestial event known as an "Earthset," in which the Earth dropped below the lunar horizon. The image is reminiscent of the iconic "Earthrise" photo that NASA astronaut Bill Anders captured in 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission that showed our planet rising on the lunar horizon.

Here's the latest on Voyager 1, and everything to know about the mission of the twin NASA probes.

NASA shuts off instrument on Voyager 1

Mission engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California turned off the Low-energy Charged Particles experiment aboard Voyager 1 on April 17, 2026.

NASA engineers sent commands on April 17 to Voyager 1 to shut down an instrument on the probe called the Low-energy Charged Particles experiment, or LECP, the space agency said in a news release .

The decision came as the aging nuclear-powered spacecraft runs low on power. NASA officials are confident that by turning off the LECP instrument, Voyager 1 will be able to conserve energy without the spacecraft getting so cold that its fuel lines freeze.

Voyager 1 still has two of its 10 original science instruments remaining in operation – including one that listens to plasma waves and one that measures magnetic fields, according to NASA.

What is the LECP on Voyager 1?

The Low-energy Charged Particles instrument has been operating almost without interruption since Voyager 1 launched almost 49 years ago.

Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are the only spacecraft far enough from Earth to use the instrument to measure things like ions, electrons and cosmic rays originating from our solar system and galaxy – providing critical data about the space beyond the giant bubble around the sun and its planets known as the heliosphere .

A small motor on the LECP that spins and scans in all directions remains on, giving the team the ability to reactivate the entire instrument if they find extra power.

When did the Voyager probes launch?

The twin Voyager probes were launched on separate dates in 1977 from Florida from what is now the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station with the mission of exploring the outer solar system .

Contrary to its name, Voyager 2 was the first of the vehicles launched into space on Aug. 20, 1977. Its twin probe, Voyager 1 , then launched Sept. 5.

Though it was the second of the probes to get off the ground, Voyager 1 was on a faster route than its counterpart as it whizzed beyond the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and overtook Voyager 2 by December of that year.

Voyager 1 has the distinction of being the farthest human-made object from Earth – a record it has maintained since 1998 when it bypassed NASA's Jupiter-exploring Pioneer 10 probe.

What is the mission of Voyager 1, Voyager 2?

Both Voyager Probes have spent nearly five decades traveling billions of miles away from Earth.

The Voyager program's main mission was originally to explore the far reaches of our solar system. To that end, the spacecraft have investigated all the giant planets of our outer solar system ‒ Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune ‒ as well as the planets' magnetic fields and a combined 48 of their moons, NASA says.

The probes completed that portion of their respective journeys by 1989, after which NASA retooled their mission as an interstellar expedition – meaning one journeying beyond our solar system into the region between stars, farther into the Milky Way .

In 2012, Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to reach interstellar space, followed in 2018 by Voyager 2, according to NASA. To this day, the probes are the only spacecraft in history to operate outside of the heliosphere – the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields generated by the sun.

The Artemis II mission launches April 1 from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The four-person crew aboard the Orion spacecraft hitched a ride to orbit atop NASA's giant 322-foot Space Launch System rocket. Launching atop 8.8 million pounds of thrust, the SLS is the most powerful rocket NASA ever launched, about 17% more powerful than the iconic Saturn V rocket used during the Apollo era.

NASA astronaut Christina Koch, a mission specialist on Artemis II, gazes out the windows of the Orion vehicle back at Earth as she and the crew head toward the moon. Koch, who already holds several NASA records from her first spaceflight in 2019 to the International Space Station, became the first woman to fly on a lunar mission.

Before going to sleep April 5, the Artemis II crew snapped one more photo of the moon, as it drew close in the window of the Orion spacecraft. Shortly after, the astronauts entered the lunar sphere of influence, where the pull of the moon's gravity became stronger than Earth's.

Of the impact craters, ancient lava flows and other lunar features the Artemis II astronauts observed during an April 6 flyby, a crater known as the Orientale basin was perhaps the most prominent. Spanning nearly 600 miles, the 3.8 billion year old crater (seen in the upper center of this photo) had never been seen with the naked eye prior to the mission.

The Orion spacecraft the Artemis II astronauts were aboard is captured in the same frame as both the moon and Earth in this photo captured about four hours into the historic April 6 flyby.

This image shows the moon fully eclipsing the sun from the vantage of the Orion spacecraft, not unlike what millions of people witnessed in April 2024 from Earth. From the crew’s perspective, the moon appeared large enough to completely block the sun, creating nearly 54 minutes of totality and revealing our star's elusive outermost layer, known as the corona.

The crew members of Artemis II embrace following the historic lunar flyby April 6, during which the astronauts flew farther from Earth than anyone in human history while seeing sights of the moon's far side never seen in person.

The Artemis II crew captured this breathtaking photo of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Spanning more than 100,000 light-years, Earth is located along one of the galaxy’s spiral arms, about halfway from the center.

10 days, 10 photos. Here are the most stunning images from Artemis II

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The Artemis II mission launches April 1 from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The four-person crew aboard the Orion spacecraft hitched a ride to orbit atop NASA's giant 322-foot Space Launch System rocket. Launching atop 8.8 million pounds of thrust, the SLS is the most powerful rocket NASA ever launched, about 17% more powerful than the iconic Saturn V rocket used during the Apollo era.

What's on the golden record?

A gold record ready to be attached to a Voyager space probe in 1977. Voyager 1 and its identical sister craft Voyager 2 were launched in 1977 to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space. The record, entitled 'The Sounds Of Earth' contains a selection of recordings of life and culture on Earth. The cover contains instructions for any extraterrestrial being wishing to play the record.

Should they encounter extraterrestrial life, both Voyager 1 and 2 also carry the famous " golden record ," functioning both as a time capsule and a friendly Earthling greeting .

Famed American astronomer Carl Sagan chaired the committee tasked with selecting the contents of the message, contained on a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk. The phonograph records contain aspects that encapsulate life on Earth, such as samples of music from different cultures and eras, natural and man-made sounds from Earth, and electronic information encoded in analog form that an advanced civilization could convert into photographs.

Where are Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 now?

Voyager 1 is more than 15.7 billion miles away from Earth, traveling through the cosmos at more than 51,300 mph, according to NASA . Voyager 2, meanwhile, is whizzing at about 50,300 mph while 13.2 billion miles away.

The space agency provides an interactive three-dimensional diagram tracking both Voyager probes' positions outside the solar system.

When will the Voyager program end?

NASA anticipates that both Voyager probes could continue to operate into the late 2020s .

NASA engineers' next plan is to attempt an ambitious energy-saving plan on both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, which they call "the big bang," designed to further extend operations.

The team will first enact the plan on Voyager 2 in May and June by turning some devices off on the probe and replacing them with lower-powered alternatives, according to NASA. If successful, the process could be repeated as early as July on Voyager 1, which is farther from Earth and has less power to spare.

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@usatodayco.com

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Voyager 1 loses another instrument as NASA looks to extend probe's life