Serendipity35

"Hack" sometimes has a bad reputation. But there are some good hacks.In technology and computing, it has two meanings:
1. Unauthorized Access (verb): To gain illegal or unauthorized access to data, a computer system, or a network (e.g., "My account got hacked").
2. Clever Code Solution (noun/verb): An elegant, clever, or quick fix in programming that solves a tricky problem.

We turn to space. NASA's Voyager 1 is still moving through interstellar space at over 35,000 miles per hour (56,000 kilometers per hour). It is 15 billion miles (about 24 billion km) away from Earth.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab wants it to keep going for just a bit longer.

There are two Voyagers, both launched in the late summer of 1977. They are wonderful relics. These older electronics give off waste heat - which is usually a bad thing - but it keeps practically every instrument onboard warm.

It will run out of power. That was expected to happen quite a while ago, but it keeps on going. So now, JPL is doing a critical power-saving hack on sister probe, Voyager 2. They’re toggling on and off Voyager 2’s key components across a coordinated sequence. It conserves energy but still keeps things from freezing.

Why Voyager 2? It was closer to Earth and had more power to test this hack. It worked and now they want to the hack on the farther-out Voyager 1.

What is their power supply? They both have modest nuclear power plants. These thermoelectric generators convert heat produced by the natural radioactive decay of plutonium-238 into electricity. That plutonium isotope is decaying toward its 88-year half-life, so less heat is being emitted.

The probes launched with 10 instruments apiece. Some have been powered down because they served their purpose when they were moving through the planets in our solar system.

I hope Voyager 1 makes it to November and hits a historic milestone. It passes one light-day’s distance from Earth. That is a fraction of one light-year, but it is also 173 times the distance between Earth and the Sun.

If it passes that point and stays online, it will take messages over 24 hours to reach it. Its 50th anniversary will be on September 5, 2027.