New Horizons faces instrument shutdown risk nearing interstellar space
Technology
NASA's New Horizons probe, famous for its Pluto flyby and epic Kuiper Belt flyby, is now around 6 billion miles from Earth and heading out of the solar system.
But two of its most important instruments might be shut down soon, even as the spacecraft approaches uncharted interstellar space.
Heliophysics cuts endanger PEPSSI and SWAP
Since 2025, NASA's Heliophysics Division has stopped $2 million a year in funding, which means the PEPSSI and SWAP detectors, used to study how our solar system protects us from cosmic radiation, could go offline by October 2026.
Even though another division still funds basic operations, it's not enough to keep these instruments running, risking a big loss for space science.