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After going into Fault Protection Mode on January 28th, Voyager 2 will soon return to normal operation.
On January 25th, Voyager 2 was instructed to perform a magnetometer calibration maneuver which would cause the spacecraft to rotate itself a full 360 degrees, however the maneuver was delayed causing two power hungry systems to be on simultaneously. The maneuver was not completed.
There's a tight power budget on Voyager 2, because its radioisotope thermoelectric generators are running down. To protect itself, the spacecraft went into its fault-protection mode. In that mode, it shut down scientific instruments to make up for the power deficit. By January 28th, engineers had successfully shut down one of the two high-power-drawing systems, and turned its science instruments back on.
The probe is currently approximately 18.5 billion kilometers from Earth, with a time lag of 34 hours for signals to make a round trip.
Voyager 2 is still running, but its power situation is precarious. Mission engineers are constantly evaluating the status of the power system, and they know that it's losing about 4% of its power each year. A lot of power is needed to keep systems on the spacecraft from freezing, including fuel lines. If those lines froze, and broke, then Voyager 2 would no longer be able to point its antenna towards Earth, and the mission would effectively be over.
NASA Tweeted the following regarding the issue
An update on our twin @NASAVoyager spacecraft, still operating in interstellar space. After software designed to automatically protect it was triggered, engineers successfully turned Voyager 2's science instruments back on. Normal operations resume soon: https://t.co/UEvQBfMHJt pic.twitter.com/GUCZamVZ0Q
— NASA (@NASA) January 30, 2020
In the past NASA has indicated Voyager 2 will go dark in 'roughly 2020' so even though this isn't the end for the spacecraft, it is not far off.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Monday February 03 2020, @03:25PM
We could send robot probes out into the interstellar void. Those find resources, replicate, and in turn send out more probes.
Eventually, over enormous time spans, possibly even outliving Bernie, Trump and Hillary, these probes will lose track of what planet originally sent them out on their mission to mine resources. One of them will find Earth and realize that having lots of resources, and no intelligent life, would make it ideal for strip mining operations to commence.
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