Mission controllers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL),
in Pasadena, California, want the Voyager 1 spacecraft to
continue collecting and transmitting data until at least 2025.
In order for the probe to do that, it needs to manage its
dwindling power supplies extremely well. The spacecraft has
already been flying for more than 34 years and 4 months, and is
currently located in the heliosheath. This is the outermost
layer of the heliosphere, which is the area of influence our Sun
has on its surrounding environment. Beyond the heliosphere (and
the heliosheath implicitly) lies the interstellar medium, which
is the main target for both Voyager 1 and 2. The former, which
launched on September 5, 1977, is now located around 119
astronomical units away from the Sun, and will most likely be
the first spacecraft ever to exit the solar system. An
astronomical unit is the equivalent of the mean distance between
the Sun and the Earth, or around 93 million miles (157 million
kilometers). But getting to that point