After traveling through space for over 20 years and covering nearly 10 billion kilometers, the New Horizons probe has reached a significant milestone in its journey. Originally launched to explore the outer reaches of our Solar System, the probe has already captured stunning images of Pluto and continues to travel beyond the planets. It is now on the verge of entering interstellar space, which lies beyond the solar wind bubble known as the heliosphere. If it successfully crosses this boundary, New Horizons will join only the two Voyager spacecraft in achieving this feat. What sets New Horizons apart, however, is that it still has two advanced instruments, SWAP and PEPSSI, which are fully operational. These tools allow scientists to study the interactions between solar winds and the surrounding interstellar medium at such great distances. SWAP is a spectrometer that measures the density and speed of particles in the solar wind, while PEPSSI focuses on analyzing the composition of plasma. PEPSSI was notably used to study the particles escaping from Pluto’s atmosphere during the probe’s historic flyby in 2015. The New Horizons mission is expected to continue until 2050, by which time the probe will have traveled 137 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun. One AU is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun, roughly 150 million kilometers. At that point, the probe will be in a region where the Sun’s influence is significantly weaker. Before that, it is expected to cross the terminal shock, the point where the solar wind abruptly slows down, sometime between 2027 and the mid-2030s. New Horizons had been in hibernation for about a year before being reactivated in July to resume its scientific measurements. The reactivation was successful, and all instruments were confirmed to be in good working condition. However, recent developments have raised concerns. In September, a report in the journal Science revealed that NASA plans to shut down SWAP and PEPSSI due to budget constraints. The Heliophysics division, which funds these instruments, has stopped allocating the $2 million (approximately 1.8 million euros) annual budget for them, and the funds were not transferred in 2025 and 2026. This decision would effectively end the critical measurements these instruments provide. In response, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has stated on X (formerly Twitter) that he is actively seeking solutions to continue the mission. Meanwhile, scientists have launched a petition, signed by around 1,700 people, to advocate for the preservation of New Horizons’ instruments. The urgency is high, as NASA and Congress must make a final decision on whether to power down the instruments by the end of September. Scientists warn that even a temporary shutdown could lead to long-term risks, including potential permanent damage to the instruments, which might prevent them from being reactivated when needed later in the mission.