How Voyager engineers found two more years in a 50-year-old power budget

SPACE EXTENDERS Adding a few extra years to Voyager 2's prodigiously long life was the result of an effort that began more than a year ago, as engineers and managers pondered how to eke out a few more watts from the spacecraft's dwindling power supply. "We came up with the 'Big Bang' idea probably more than a year ago now," recalls Suzanne Dodd, Project Manager for the Voyager project. "We were looking for ways to extend the lifetime of the mission, which means really extending how long we can operate the instruments." Power and thermal requirements are key. "We either run out of power, or we get too cold so that our propellant lines freeze and we can't point the spacecraft at the antenna anymore." The original plan was to turn off the...

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