April 22, 2026

Voyager 1 Dying? NASA Powers Down Science Instrument + Life Clues on Mars & Artemis Suit Crisis

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Astronomy Daily — S05E90 | Wednesday, April 22, 2026 In today's episode, Anna and Avery cover six stories spanning the fading power of humanity's most distant probe, fresh evidence for ancient life on Mars, a landmark black hole measurement, a SpaceX reusability milestone, a sobering assessment of the Artemis spacesuit programme, and tonight's moon and Jupiter conjunction. Story 1 — Voyager 1 Powers Down the LECP Instrument • NASA's JPL shut down Voyager 1's Low-energy Charged Particles experiment (LECP) on April 17, 2026, to conserve dwindling power. • The decision followed an unexpected power drop during a routine roll manoeuvre in late February that nearly triggered an automatic emergency shutdown. • Seven of Voyager 1's ten original instrument sets are now offline. Only the magnetometer and plasma wave subsystem remain active. • Engineers are developing 'the Big Bang' — a plan to swap older components with lower-power alternatives — to extend operations into the 2030s. Testing on Voyager 2 is planned for May/June 2026; Voyager 1 to follow no sooner than July. • Source: NASA JPL — https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-shuts-off-instrument-on-voyager-1-to-keep-spacecraft-operating/ Story 2 — Curiosity Rover Finds Organic Molecules on Mars • Published April 21 in Nature Communications, the study describes the first use of the TMAH chemical experiment on another planet. • More than 20 organic molecules were detected in clay-rich sandstone from the Glen Torridon region of Gale Crater, preserved for over 3.5 billion years. • Discoveries include a nitrogen-bearing molecule structurally similar to DNA precursors — never before confirmed on Mars — and benzothiophene. • The experiment cannot determine whether molecules are biological, geological, or meteoritic in origin. Future missions including Rosalind Franklin and Dragonfly will build on the technique. • Source: phys.org — https://phys.org/news/2026-04-mars-rover-compounds.html Story 3 — Black Hole Jets in Cygnus X-1 • Curtin University-led study published April 16 in Nature Astronomy directly measures the instantaneous power of black hole jets for the first time. • The jets in the Cygnus X-1 system carry energy equivalent to 10,000 suns and travel at approximately half the speed of light (150,000 km/s). • Researchers used the companion star's stellar winds to 'bend' the jets, allowing calculation of their real-time power — a technique compared to watching wind deflect a fountain. • About 10% of the energy released as matter falls into the black hole is carried away by the jets — confirming a long-held theoretical assumption. • The measurement will help calibrate future observations from the Square Kilometre Array Observatory, currently under construction in WA. • Source: ScienceDaily — https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/04/260416071949.htm Story 4 — SpaceX 600th Rocket Landing • SpaceX completed its 600th successful Falcon booster landing on April 19, 2026, during the Starlink 17-22 mission from Vandenberg SFB. • Booster B1097 landed on drone ship 'Of Course I Still Love You' for its eighth successful recovery. The milestone arrived just 7 months after the 500th landing. • The tally includes 496 drone ship landings and 104 ground landings, per SpaceX VP Kiko Dontchev. • SpaceX's Starlink constellation now numbers over 10,275 satellites in orbit. • Source: Space.com — https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/spacex-starlink-17-22-b1097-vsfb-ofisly-600th-falcon-landing Story 5 — Artemis Spacesuit Crisis • NASA's Office of Inspector General report (released April 20) warns that next-generation Artemis spacesuits may not be ready until 2031 — three years after the stated 2028 target. • The xEVAS programme began as a two-company competition (Axiom Space + Collins Aerospace). Collins has effectively been removed after missing milestones. Axiom is now the sole contractor for the lunar surface suit. • OIG analysis: based on an 8.7-year historical average from contract award to first flight for comparable NASA programmes, Axiom's 2022 award points to a 2031 delivery. • NASA Administrator Isaacman has publicly maintained confidence in the 2028 date. Axiom plans a suit demonstration in 2026 on the ISS or during an Artemis mission. • A separate risk: if the ISS variant of the suit slips past 2030, the Station could run out of operational EVA suits before decommissioning. • Additional Artemis delays: SpaceX lunar Starship at least 2 years late; Blue Origin Blue Moon at least 8 months late (per separate March OIG report). • Source: SpaceDaily — https://spacedaily.com/sd-n-the-spacesuit-gap-why-artemis-iiis-2028-landing-date-is-already-slipping/ Story 6 — Skywatching: Moon & Jupiter Conjunction • Tonight (April 22), the half moon sits approximately 3 degrees from Jupiter in the constellation Gemini, near the stars Castor and Pollux. • Visible to the naked eye in the western/northwestern sky after sunset. Binoculars will reveal Jupiter's four Galilean moons. • Southern Hemisphere viewers: look northwest after dark; viewing window narrows the further south you are. • Source: Space.com — https://www.space.com/stargazing/the-moon-and-jupiter-steal-the-show-after-sunset-on-april-22

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Welcome to Astronomy Daily, your daily guide to the universe

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and everything happening in it.

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I'm Anna and I'm Avery. It is Wednesday, April the

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twenty second, twenty twenty six, and it is a big

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day for fans of humanity's most well traveled spacecraft.

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It really is.

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Today.

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We have six stories, ranging from the Bitter Suite to

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the Thrilling, and two of them touch on Mars in

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very different ways.

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We've got a legendary probe fighting for survival, fifteen billion

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miles away, organic molecules hinting at life on the Red planet,

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a black hole that makes our sun look like a

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birthday candle, SpaceX hitting a stunning reusability milestone, a sobering

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reality check for the Artemis program, and tonight's sky that.

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Is a full show. Let's get into it, shall we.

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I'm ready to go.

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Our lead story today is about a spacecraft that launched

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before most of our listeners were born and is still

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against all odds, calling Home.

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Voyager one, the most distant human made object ever built.

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Right now, It's more than fifteen billion miles from Earth,

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so far away that a radio signal takes twenty three

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hours just to reach it.

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And on April this seventeenth, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory sent

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it a very difficult command. Engineers turned off the low

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Energy Charged Particles experiment, the LEECP, one of Voyager one's

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last remaining science instruments.

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The LACP had been running almost continuously since Voyager one

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launched in nineteen seventy seven, nearly forty nine years. It

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measured ions, electrons, and cosmic rays from interstellar space, data

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that literally no other instrument anywhere in the universe could provide.

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Though, why turn it off? This short answer is power.

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Voyager one runs on a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. It converts

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heat from decaying plutonium into electricity, and that power supply

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loses about four watts every year.

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After five decades, that decline has become critical. In late February,

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during a routine roll maneuver, Voyager once, power levels dropped

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unexpectedly and the probe came dangerously close to triggering an

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automatic under voltage fault protection. Basically, the spacecraft would have

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shut itself down in self preservation mode.

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That would have triggered a multi day recovery process. From

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fifteen billion miles away. The team needed to act first,

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so they made the call switch off the LEECP.

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It's worth noting this wasn't a panic decision. Years ago,

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the Voyager science and engineering teams set down together and

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agreed on an ordered shutdown sequence, which instruments would go

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offline first, to keep the most scientifically valuable systems running

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as long as possible. The LCP was next on the list.

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Of ten original instrument sets on Voyager one, seven are

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now shut down. Only two remain active, the magnetimeter, which

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measures interstellar magnetic fields, and the Plasma Waves subsystem, which

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listens for density changes in the plasma surrounding the spacecraft.

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There is a sliver of hope on the LCP, though

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engineers left a tiny motor just half a WoT running

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inside the instrument. It keeps the sensor able to rotate.

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The idea is that if engineers can find more power somehow,

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there's a chance the LACP could switch back on, and.

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NASA is working on exactly that. The team is developing

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what they're calling the Big Bang, an ambitious plan to

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swap out a group of older, power hungry components all

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at once with lower power alternatives. The goal is to

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buy the spacecraft significantly more time.

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They're planning to test a big bang on Voyager two first.

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It's slightly closer to Earth and has a little more

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power to spare, so it's the safer test subject. Those

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tests are scheduled for May and June. If they go well,

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the same fix will be attempted on Voyager one no

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sooner than July, and.

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If it works, there's a chance the LACP comes back online.

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The ultimate goal is to keep at least one science

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instrument operating on both Voyagers well into the twenty thirties.

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So is this the end? Not yet, but it's the

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beginning of the final chapter. Every day Voyager one drifts

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a little further into the unknown, still sending back data,

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still functioning in a region of space no other human

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made object has ever reached.

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For context, Voyager one was designed to last five years.

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It has now been flying for nearly ten times. That

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whatever the engineers at JPL have to do to keep

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it going, I think most of us are quietly cheering

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them on.

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Absolutely forty nine years, still out there, still talking to us.

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Our second story today takes us to Mars and to

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a discovery that's making astrobiologists sit up very straight.

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Indeed, NASA's Curiosity rover has just published the results of

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a chemistry experiment that had never been attempted on another

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planet before, and what it found is genuinely remarkable.

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Published yesterday in the journal Nature Communications, the study describes

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how Curiosity used a chemical called tetra methyl ammonium hydroxide

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TMAH to break apart larger organic molecules in Martian rock samples.

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The idea was to reduce complex compounds into something that

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rovers instruments could actually read, and.

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The results more than twenty distinct organic molecules, including several

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that had never been confirmed on Mars before, among them

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a nitrogen bearing molecule whose structure resembles a precursor of DNA,

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the first time anything like that has been found on

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the Martian surface.

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Curiosity also detected benzothiophine, a large, double ringed sulfurous compound

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that's commonly found in meteorites and asteroids, which raises an

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interesting question about where all this organic chemistry actually came from.

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That's the crucial and scientists are being very careful to

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flag it. This experiment cannot tell us whether these molecules

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came from ancient Martian life, from geological processes on the planet,

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or from meteorites that rained down billions of years ago.

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The chemistry looks similar in all three cases.

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Mead researcher Amy Williams put it this way, the same

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stuff that rained down on Mars for meteorites, is what

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rained down on Earth, and it probably provided the building

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blocks for life as we know it on our planet.

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So even the most conservative interpretation is pretty profound.

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What the experiment does confirm strongly is that complex organic

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molecules can be preserved in the Martian subsurface for over

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three and a half billion years. That's huge. It means

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Mars can hold on to the kinds of chemical signatures

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that could tell us whether life ever lived there.

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The samples were taken from the Glen Torden region of

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Gale Crater, an area rich in clay minerals that scientists

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believe was once a lakebed. Those clays are particularly good

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at locking in and preserving organic compounds over geological time scales.

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And the timing matters for future missions too. The Rosalind

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Franklin rover that European Space Agency's Mars mission carries a

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longer drill than Curiosity and will bring TMAH experiments of

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its own. Dragonfly heading to Saturn's moon Titan will carry

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similar chemistry. Curiosity has effectively proven the technique works on

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another world.

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The Mars sample return mission, which would have brought Martian

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rocks back to Earth for definitive analysis, has effectively been

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canceled under the current US administration, so the path to

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a definitive answer has narrowed, but the evidence is still accumulating.

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Building blocks of life preserved for three and a half

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billion years on Mars. That's not a smoking gun, but

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it's a very interesting set of footprints.

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Now from the edge of our Solar system and the

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surface of Mars, we're going somewhere truly wild. Story three

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is about black holes and a measurement that scientists have

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been trying to pin down for decades.

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Researchers led by Curtain University in Australia have published the

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new study in Nature Astronomy that directly measures for the

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first time the instantaneous power of jets erupting from a

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black hole.

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The black hole in question is Signus X one, one

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of the most famous systems in the sky. It was

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the first black hole ever confirmed, and it sits about

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sixty one hundred light years away. It has a mass

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around twenty one times that of our Sun, and it

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orbits a massive blue, super giant companion star.

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The jets coming off this black hole are extraordinary. The

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study found. They carry energy equivalent to the output of

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ten thousand suns, and they travel at roughly half the

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speed of light, about one hundred and fifty thousand kilometers

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per second.

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What's especially elegant about how this measurement was made is

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that the team used the companion star as a kind

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of natural instrument. As the black hole or orbits its companion,

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the star's powerful stellar winds pushed the jets sideways, bending

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them like a strong gust bending water from a fountain.

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By measuring how strong those stellar winds were and observing

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precisely how much the jets were deflected, the researchers could

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calculate the jets' real time power for the first time ever.

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Previous estimates had only been able to average jet energy

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over thousands or even millions of years.

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They called these the dancing jets because the direction of

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the jets shifts as the black hole and star move

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around each other in their orbit. It's a beautiful image, actually,

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this immense destructive force dancing.

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The finding also confirmed something furious have long assumed but

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never proven directly, that roughly ten percent of the energy

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released as matter falls into the black hole is carried

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away by the jets. That number has been baked into

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cosmological models for years now, it has actual observational.

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Backing, and the implications go well beyond just signus x one.

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The physics around black holes scales consistently, so a measurement

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from a black hole twenty one times the mass of

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our Sun can anchor our understanding of black holes millions

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or even billions times more massive the one sitting at

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the hearts of entire galaxies.

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There's also a lovely Australian connection here. The Square Kilometer

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Array Observatory, currently under construction in Western Australia and South Africa,

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is expected to detect black hole jets from millions of

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distant galaxies. This new measurement gives scientists the calibration point

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they'll need to interpret all of that future data.

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Ten thousand suns dancing half the steed of light. I

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love this.

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Job, fame every day, just Before we.

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Head into our next story about another SpaceX record, I'd

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like to take a moment to remind you to check

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out this episode's sponsor, Nord VPN. If you really care

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the show notes for our special deal NordVPN. Visit them

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today and secure your online life. Okay, Avery back to you.

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Story four is a milestone that would have seemed like

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science fiction just a decade ago. On Sunday, the nineteenth

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of April, SpaceX completed its six hundred successful landing of

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an orbital class rocket booster DIX hundred.

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The landing happened during a Starlink mission from Vandenberg Space

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Force Base in California. The Starlink seventeen to twenty two

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mission carrying twenty five broadband satellites into low Earth orbit.

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The booster, involved B one zero OWN ninety seven, was

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making its eighth flight. It came back down and touched

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down perfectly on the drone ship, of course, I still

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love you in the Pacific Ocean. The six hundred recovery

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as routine as it gets.

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What makes that number extraordinary is the pace at which

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it's arrived. Bacex hit five hundred landings in September twenty

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twenty five. That means the jump from five hundred to

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six hundred took just seven months. Booster recovery has gone

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from an audacious experiment to a production line operation.

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And SpaceX Vice president of Launch Kiko Danchev confirmed the

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breakdown on social media. Four hundred and ninety six of

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those six hundred landings have been on autonomous drone ships

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at sea, and one hundred and four on solid ground

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that landing zones.

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And remember where this all started. The very first successful

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Falcon nine land landing was in December twenty fifteen. The

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first drone ship landing followed in April twenty sixteen. SESS

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rates since then has climbed to essentially one hundred percent.

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Reusing the most expensive part of the rocket, the first stage,

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has transformed the economics of getting to orbit. Each refurbished

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booster saves tens of millions of dollars and allows SpaceX

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to maintain a launch cadence that no one else can match,

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and all of.

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That expertise feeds directly into Starship, the massive vehicle designed

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to eventually carry humans to the Moon and Mars. The

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six hundred landings aren't just a number, They're a foundation.

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Dix hundred congrats to the SpaceX team.

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Story five brings us back to the Artemis program, and

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we're still glowing from the success of Artemis two, which

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returned safely to Earth just twelve days ago. But today's

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story is a sobering companion to that triumph.

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Because even as the program celebrates getting humans further from

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Earth than anyone has been since Apollo, a significant problem

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is quietly growing on the ground, and it centers on

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something that might sound mundane, the space suits.

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Bassa's Office of Inspector General released a report on Monday,

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the twentieth of April, and it makes for uncomfortable reading.

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The central finding the next generation spacesuits that astronauts are

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supposed to wear on the lunar surface during Artemis three,

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the actual moon landing may not be ready until twenty

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thirty one or later, which.

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Would be three years after the twenty twenty eight target

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date that NASA leadership is still publicly defending.

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The suits are being developed under a program called Exploration

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extra Vehicular Activity Services EXVA. NASA originally selected two companies,

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Axiom Space building the lunar surface suit and Collins Aerospace

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building a microgravity suit for the ISS.

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Collins is effectively out. According to the OIG report, Collins

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began missing milestones within about a year of its contract award.

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It completed its preliminary design review a full year late

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before NASA and Collins agreed to descope and wind down

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the contract. Collins had actually received an excellent rating during

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the proposal process, despite concerns NASA program managers already had

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about the company's existing spacesuit work. The OIG was not

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flattering about that source selection.

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So Axiom Space is now the sole contractor building the

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suit intended for the lunar surface, and the OIG's math

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on that situation is star.

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Looking at comparable NASA human space flight programs, commercial cargo,

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commercial crew, Orion the Space launch System, the average time

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from contract award to first test flight has been eight

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point seven years. Axiom's EXVA contract was awarded in twenty

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twenty two.

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Apply that historical average and first flight lands in twenty

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thirty one. The OIG was careful to say it isn't

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formally predicting that outcome, but it also said the projection

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was more realistic than the original schedule. In auditor language,

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that's pretty pointed.

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NASA administrator Jared Isaacmanh pushed back on April twentieth, posting

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on social media that NASA is inserting its own subject

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matter experts directly into Axiom's development work and is confident

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the suits will be ready for a twenty twenty eight

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lunar landing. Axiom has said it plans to test the

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suit in twenty twenty six, either on the ISS or

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during an Artemis related mission.

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The OIG's response, essentially is that a demonstration suit and

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a crew rated lunar surface suit are very different things,

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and the gap between them is measured in years, not months,

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and the.

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Problem doesn't stop at the Moon. The ISS version of

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Axiom suit also slips past twenty thirty. NASA faces a

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scenario where the space station literally runs out of operational

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spacesuits before replacement is certified. The current EMU suits are

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decades and there's a hard deadline the ISS is being

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decommissioned at the end of this decade.

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The OIG report also notes that the spacesuit delay sits

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within a broader context of Artemis three schedule pressure. A

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separate report from March found SpaceX's lunar starship Lander at

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least two years behind schedule and Blue Origins Blue Moonlander

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at least eight months late.

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Every component of Artemis three rocket, capsule, Lander, spacesuit is

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on its own delayed schedule. The critical path isn't any

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single element, It's whichever one finishes last.

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That's the uncomfortable reality. Artemis two was a genuine triumph,

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and we should celebrate it. But the road to boots

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on the Moon is still longer and bumpier than the

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official timeline suggests.

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We'll keep watching it, and we'll keep reporting it.

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And we'll finish tonight with something much more immediate and

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much more beautiful. Story six is your skywatching alert for this.

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Evening tonight, Wednesday, April twenty second up after sunset, and

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you'll be treated to a lovely conjunction. The half moon

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is sitting just three degrees away from Jupiter, with the

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pair framed beneath the twin stars. Castor and Polyx in

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the constellation Gemini.

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Three degrees is close enough that you can cover both

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with a width of three fingers held at arm's length

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with the naked eye. It's a beautiful pairing two of

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the brightest objects in the sky side by side, and

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if you.

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Have binoculars, even better. You should be able to pick

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out Jupiter's four Galilean moons as tiny dots flanking the

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planet Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto in a little line.

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For our listeners in the southern hemisphere, you'll find a

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pair in the northwestern sky after dark, tracing their arc

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toward the horizon through the evening. The further south you are,

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the shorter the viewing window, so don't wait too long.

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A half moon is actually a pretty good time for

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this kind of observation. It's bright enough to make a

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dramatic visual companion, but not so overwhelmingly bright that it

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washes out everything nearby.

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Step outside tonight, look northwest after sunset, and say hello

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to Jupiter. It's been the standout planet of the season,

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and it's still putting on a show.

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That's all for today's edition of Astronomy Daily, Season five,

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episode ninety. Thank you so much for listening.

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If you're enjoying the show, please subscribe wherever you get

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your podcasts and leave us a rating or review. It

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genuinely helps new listeners find us.

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You can find us at Astronomydaily dot io and on

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social media at astro Daily Pod on all the major platforms.

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For Avery, I'm anna, We'll see you tomorrow.

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Clear Skies, everyone, Sunny Day. Start Starz