{"id":236676,"date":"2026-05-06T22:21:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T03:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/nasa-powers-down-voyager-1-instrument-as-it-fights-to-survive-deep-space"},"modified":"2026-05-06T22:21:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T03:21:51","slug":"nasa-powers-down-voyager-1-instrument-as-it-fights-to-survive-deep-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/nasa-powers-down-voyager-1-instrument-as-it-fights-to-survive-deep-space","title":{"rendered":"NASA Powers Down Voyager 1 Instrument As It Fights To Survive Deep Space"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/nasa-powers-down-voyager-1-instrument-as-it-fights-to-survive-deep-space.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Voyager 1 is losing power, and NASA just shut down a decades-old instrument to keep it going. The sacrifice could help the spacecraft continue exploring interstellar space a little longer.<\/p>\n<p>On April 17, engineers at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California transmitted commands to switch off an instrument on Voyager 1 known as the Low-energy Charged Particles experiment, or LECP. The spacecraft, which runs on nuclear power, is steadily losing energy, and shutting down this instrument is the most effective way to extend the mission of the first human-made object to reach interstellar space.<\/p>\n<p>A 49-Year-Old Instrument Falls Silent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Voyager 1 is losing power, and NASA just shut down a decades-old instrument to keep it going. The sacrifice could help the spacecraft continue exploring interstellar space a little longer. On April 17, engineers at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California transmitted commands to switch off an instrument on Voyager 1 known as [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[873,48,1514],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nuclear-energy","category-particle-physics","category-space-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}