NASA beamed the latest updates to Voyager 1 and 2 from billion of miles away. The patches could offer another at least five years' more life.

The Voyager team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) confirmed they have transmitted a software patch to Voyager 2 first. Since the spacecraft is more than 12 billion miles away, it took 18 ...

Engineers for NASA's Voyager mission are taking steps to help make sure both spacecraft, ... As an added safety precaution, Voyager 2 will receive the patch first and serve as a testbed for its twin.

In a major milestone for space exploration, NASA has successfully reestablished contact with Voyager 2, the iconic space probe that has been exploring the outer reaches of our solar system since 1977.

Launched in 1977, NASA’s Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft explored all the outer planets within our solar system like never before. When their respective missions ended, they were both sent hurtling ...

We are carrying out the mission above. However, on Voyager 1 in 2022, ... Voyager 2 is 12 billion miles (about 19.3 billion km) away, and it took 18 hours to send the patch to Voyager 2. .

For this reason, Voyager 2 will get the patch first, acting as a testbed for its impact. Voyager 1’s data is considered more valuable because it is further away from Earth than any other spacecraft.

Managers wanted to try the patch on Voyager 2 before transmitting it to Voyager 1, which is flying farther from Earth, deeper into interstellar space. That makes observations of the environment ...

Later, in the 1990s, the mission’s scope was broadened to allow both probes to venture beyond the heliosphere—a protective bubble generated by the Sun. Voyager 1 reached this outer boundary in ...

As I noted above, the Voyager 2 mission won’t be shuttered anytime soon. Despite NASA turning off the plasma science instrument, the probe still has four other operational instruments aboard it.

Voyager 2 followed suit in 2018. Spilker, who first began working on the Voyager missions when she graduated college in 1977, said the missions could last into the 2030s.