Voyager 2's low-energy charged particle instrument is switched off
The companion shutdown a month later, announced together with Voyager 1's in a JPL release on 5 March 2025. The same release set out the sequence to follow: Voyager 1's low-energy charged particle instrument would run through the remainder of 2025 and be switched off in 2026, and Voyager 2's cosmic ray subsystem was scheduled for shutdown in 2026. With that plan, engineers expected at least one instrument to keep running on each spacecraft into the 2030s.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Voyager 2 · mission · Interstellar space, on a southward trajectory out of the ecliptic plane · not located
- Multi-Hundred-Watt radioisotope thermoelectric generator · technology · not located
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory · organisation · United States
Evidence
Verified — Every field is supported by a cited authoritative source.
NASA Turns Off 2 Voyager Science Instruments to Extend Mission
Voyager 1's cosmic ray subsystem was switched off on 25 February 2025 and Voyager 2's low-energy charged particle instrument on 24 March 2025; both spacecraft lose about four watts of generator output per year; three science instruments continued to operate on each; Voyager 1's low-energy charged particle instrument was to run through 2025 and be switched off in 2026, and Voyager 2's cosmic ray subsystem was scheduled for shutdown in 2026, with the plan expected to keep at least one instrument running on each spacecraft into the 2030s. V55 verification basis: the release was not fetched — jpl.nasa.gov and science.nasa.gov are both blocked by this session's network egress proxy — but search results carried these specific figures and dates and attributed them to this release.
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory / California Institute of Technology · 2025-03-05 · Verified
NASA JPL news release, 5 March 2025, https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-turns-off-two-voyager-science-instruments-to-extend-mission/ (also posted to the NASA Voyager blog, science.nasa.gov/blogs/voyager/2025/03/05/)
Recorded on Voyager 2
- The full Grand Tour is cancelled and rebuilt as a two-spacecraft mission
- Voyager 2 launches
- Voyager 1 launches
- Voyager 2 closest approach to Jupiter
- Voyager 2 passes Saturn and continues towards Uranus
- Voyager 2 reaches Uranus — the only close encounter ever made
- Voyager 2 passes Neptune and Triton, ending the planetary programme
- Voyager 2 crosses the termination shock at about 84 AU
- Voyager 2 crosses the heliopause at 119 AU
- Voyager 1's cosmic ray subsystem is switched off
- Voyager 2's low-energy charged particle instrument is switched off
- Voyager 1's low-energy charged particle instrument due for shutdown
- The "Big Bang" power manoeuvre on Voyager 2
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- The "Big Bang" power manoeuvre on Voyager 2 · 2026-07-09
- Voyager 1's cosmic ray subsystem is switched off · 2025-02-25
- Voyager 1's low-energy charged particle instrument due for shutdown · 2026 (announced plan)
- Voyager 2 crosses the heliopause at 119 AU · 2018-11-05
- Voyager 2 crosses the termination shock at about 84 AU · 2007-08-30
- Voyager 2 passes Neptune and Triton, ending the planetary programme · 1989-08-25
- Voyager 2 reaches Uranus — the only close encounter ever made · 1986-01-24
- Voyager 2 passes Saturn and continues towards Uranus · 1981-08-25