NASA engineers have developed a ‘Big Bang’ power-management change for Voyager 2 that could extend its scientific life by about two years. Rather than shutting systems down one by one, the team switched several spacecraft-bus systems at once, freeing power while retaining enough waste heat to prevent propellant lines from freezing and preserve the craft’s ability to point at Earth.

The approach was necessary because Voyager 2, launched in 1977, is operating on a dwindling power supply where even 0.2 watts can be significant. Engineers relied on nearly 50-year-old component data, tested the power configuration briefly first, then ran it for six hours in June to assess temperature changes; each test involved up to 20 hours for commands to arrive and another 20 hours for telemetry to return. Results broadly matched, and sometimes surpassed, the thermal and power models.