Voyager - Interstellar mission

Stephen · 2005-05-24 19:47:39

The Planetary Society's website has posted a longish article (http://planetary.org/news/2005/voyager-update_t-shock-termination_0524.html]Voyager 1 Enters Final Frontier of Solar System as NASA Considers Termination) on the Voyager funding matter filled with lots of juicy details.

Amongst other things, it reports that team members have told the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, that the Voyager 1 has crossed the termination shock and is now in the heliosheath.

Palomar · 2005-05-26 06:25:58

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/voyager1-05c.html]Audio of V1!

*A scientist has posted, on the net, sounds recently obtained from Voyager 1 (termination shock region).

He speculates it'll take yet another 10 years for Voyager 1 to be completely free of the Solar System.

--Cindy

SpaceNut · 2005-06-02 12:50:49

Great stuff that we are learning from the voyagers.

I did not want to start a new thread for Nasa cancellation or early retirement of probes or satelites.
Leading theories of cosmic explosions contradicted indicates that the High Energy Transient Explorer-2 satellites.

Observations of a cosmic explosion detected on Feb. 15 by two NASA satellites have thrown into doubt one popular explanation for such explosions and have also seriously weakened the argument for yet another, according to University of Chicago astrophysicist Don Lamb. But solving the mystery any time soon may be forestalled by plans to shut down one of the satellites in September.

Which includes the Swift Xray, regular gamma-ray bursts and such that are all produced by the collapse of massive stars and probably the creation of black holes.

SpaceNut · 2005-09-23 05:56:23

Thanks Cindy for referencing this thread in your NASA: Please DON'T Ax the Voyager Mission!! poll.

Fron this news NASA gets wind of new solar details we must assume that the funding did stay intact even if only for a short while longer.

Readings collected by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft as it passed through the zone on its way to interstellar space in December show that the intensity of low-energy particles and magnetic fields increases sharply at the frontier.
The termination shock doesn't perform as we expected," he wrote. "It is clear that it is a shock, but not the prodigious accelerator [of the high-energy particles] that we expected.
Scientists think the small nuclear generators on the craft could last another 15 years. When those fail, the Voyagers won't be able to collect or transmit data.

Wow another 15 years of possible collection of data and transmission. Can we even recieve such a weak signal?

SpaceNut · 2006-02-16 07:33:35

Long ago launched but not forgotten.

A new study may help lead to an explanation of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft anomalies. The two crafts were launched in 1972 and 1973 respectively, and are now at the outskirts of the solar system.

Dark Matter Energy is Hydrogen - Speed and Temperature Help Explains Pioneer Anomalies

SpaceNut · 2007-08-22 20:47:45

The little probes that could....
Voyager spacecraft far exceed JPL's expectations

When Ed Massey became JPL's project manager for the Voyager spacecraft, he didn't expect to hold the post for long.
At that time, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 - which were only planned to last five years - were almost about to turn 20.
"When we reached the 25th anniversary, I was amazed that the spacecraft had been flying that long and nothing had caused a detrimental failure," Massey said.
That was five years ago.
This week, Voyager 2 marked its 30th year in space. Voyager 1 will turn 30 on Sept. 5.

cIclops · 2007-12-17 11:57:42

Voyager 2 Proves Solar System Is Squashed - 10 Dec 2007

San Francisco, CA. - NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft has followed its twin Voyager 1 into the solar system's final frontier, a vast region at the edge of our solar system where the solar wind runs up against the thin gas between the stars.
However, Voyager 2 took a different path, entering this region, called the heliosheath, on August 30, 2007. Because Voyager 2 crossed the heliosheath boundary, called the solar wind termination shock, about 10 billion miles away from Voyager 1 and almost a billion miles closer to the sun, it confirmed that our solar system is " squashed" or " dented"- that the bubble carved into interstellar space by the solar wind is not perfectly round. Where Voyager 2 made its crossing, the bubble is pushed in closer to the sun by the local interstellar magnetic field.

SpaceNut · 2017-07-15 10:29:57

Pioneer 10: first probe to leave the inner solar system & precursor to Juno

Screen-Shot-2017-07-14-at-13.42.29-350x260.png

The final signal received from Pioneer 10 arrived on Earth through the Deep Space Network on 23 January 2003 from a distance of ~82.2 AU.
All further attempts to contact the spacecraft were unsuccessful, with the final attempt made on 4 March 2006 – 34 years and 1 day after the craft left Earth on its historic mission.
Today, Pioneer 10 – assuming it hasn’t collided with anything – is ~118.5 AU from the sun and is travelling outward at 2.54 AU per year.
It is currently the second farthest human-made object from the sun – a position it will hold until April 2019 when Voyager 2 overtakes it.
If left undisturbed, Pioneer 10’s trajectory will take it in the general direction of Aldebaran.

There has been some debate as to did it leave our solar system or not.

SpaceNut · 2017-12-02 14:52:59

I see that the topic needs some fixing....

“The Voyager flight team dug up decades-old data and examined the software that was coded in an outdated assembler language, to make sure we could safely test the thrusters,”

So what's up with this as Rocket blast from the past: Voyager 1 fires thrusters last used in 1980

Voyager 1 is over 13 billion miles (nearly 21 billion kilometers) from Earth with it's sibling craft, Voyager 2, is 10.8 billion miles (over 17 million kilometers) from Earth and will likely undergo a similar procedure, though per NASA, its main thruster set is in better condition.

WoW.... 40 years and still ticking but the space crafts’ power sources are estimated to run dry around 2025, at which point they will no longer be reachable.

Launched 40 years ago, 1977, the twin spacecrafts Voyager 1 and 2 were launched, 16 days apart.

It is expected that in the year 40,272, Voyager 1 will come within 1.7 light years of an obscure star in the constellation Ursa Minor (the Little Bear or Little Dipper) and in about 40,000 years, Voyager 2 will come within about 1.7 light years of a star called Ross 248, a small star in the constellation of Andromeda.

NASA fired up Voyager 1’s backup thrusters for the first time in 37 years

BBG36r1.img?h=486&w=728&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f

NASA is getting really good at squeezing every last bit of life out of its hardware. It recently extended the Dawn spacecraft’s mission over Ceres for a second time, while New Horizons is on its way to check out a small icy body called 2014 MU69 in January 2019.

Finally in this article the thrusters are to steer the probe for transmission back to earth as they are simular to the others which are showing wear....

SpaceNut · 2018-10-05 21:43:30

A very old topic with a missing gap of a decade of posts from the great crash....

NASA Voyager 2 could be nearing interstellar space

NASA's Voyager 2 probe, currently on a journey toward interstellar space, has detected an increase in cosmic rays that originate outside our solar system. Launched in 1977, Voyager 2 is a little less than 11 billion miles (about 17.7 billion kilometers) from Earth, or more than 118 times the distance from Earth to the Sun.

wow such great distance.....

The heliosphere changes shapes with solar activity and most like with the same effects from nearby stars as well....

SpaceNut · 2019-11-05 08:39:31

Seems that we are still learning about our solar system still from Voyager....Voyager 2 is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets.
NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft beamed back unprecedented data from interstellar space. It indicates a mysterious extra layer outside our solar system.

https://theskylive.com/voyager2-tracker

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voya … 00506.html

louis · 2019-11-05 10:47:31

Heard a radio item about this. Yes, this is fascinating - moving beyond the heliosphere. But that pic would have to be about 5000 times wider to show the star nearest to the Sun!

I wonder whether we would now be so open about out planet - where it is exactly, what sort of beings we are and what sort of civilisation we have - as we were back in the more open 1970s. People now might exercise more caution I think...especially since the Nimitz Encounters. Perhaps now we would simply send a message about a message..."if you come across this craft, please send a message in the general direction of this part of the galaxy on such and such a radio frequency."

Last edited by louis (2019-11-05 10:53:51)

SpaceNut · 2019-11-05 17:52:32

Memory serves me in that the Pioneers 10 and 11, which preceded Voyager, both carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers. The plaques show the nude figures of a human male and female along with several symbols that are designed to provide information about the origin of the spacecraft. The Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft were the first human-built objects to achieve escape velocity from the Solar System.

The voyagers carried a record with lots more data
https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/ … en-record/

elderflower · 2019-11-12 11:33:17

Any intelligence with radio frequency receiving equipment within several tens of light years of earth is already going to know we are here. Its like "find the rave party in a suburban street on a Saturday evening". We are noisy. I am expecting somebody to come round and tell us to turn it down.

SpaceNut · 2019-11-12 19:41:04

We seem to be intelligent but we are hearing radio silence so does it mean we are in the future of the timeline of the big bang or is there another reason.

SpaceNut · 2021-05-10 19:57:58

Whats that tune? Are there any words to it? NASA’s Voyager 1 Probe Detects the Steady ‘Hum’ of Plasma in Interstellar Space

low-frequency hum that’s droning away at approximately 3 kHz.

thats not low but mid range....

SpaceNut · 2022-12-30 17:05:31

It seems like so long between any news of the ships but here is an update It should take another 300 years for NASA's Voyager 1 probe to reach the most distant region of our solar system. Until then, it's cruising through the void between the stars. In 300 years, Voyager 1 could see the Oort Cloud, and in 296,000 years, Voyager 2 could pass by Sirius

Nasa had trouble recently when the computers were sending bad data only to find some how the backup had been returned to the primary which was defective for the data it was sending.

Breaking out the schematics of the probe made it possible to solve but who will be there when it needs to be solved again.

Voyagers 1 and 2 are exploring the mysterious region between stars called interstellar space.
NASA launched the twin probes in 1977 for a five-year mission to trek across the solar system.
It should take Voyager 1 40,000 years to reach another star, according to the space agency.
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 launched in 1977 within 16 days of one another with a design lifetime of five years to study Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and their respective moons up close.
Now 45 years into their mission, they've each made history by boldly venturing beyond the boundary of our sun's influence, known as the heliopause.
Both plucky spacecraft continue to send data back from beyond the solar system — and their cosmic journeys are far from over.
As part of an ongoing power-management effort that has ramped up in recent years, engineers have been powering down non-technical systems on board the Voyager probes, like their science-instruments heaters, hoping to keep them going through 2030.

SpaceNut · 2023-01-10 19:02:17

I can only assume that the probes and large telescopes are why we Astronomers have found the edge of our galaxy 1,000,000 light-years away

AA16aSsV.img?w=534&h=402&m=6

SpaceNut · 2023-04-25 20:27:23

How is Voyager's vintage technology still flying?

SpaceNut · 2023-12-16 14:22:54

Communication has gone garbled again.
NASA's Oldest Spacecraft Keeps Trying to Call Pasadena

When Voyager I (and its famous golden record) was launched on September 5, 1977 the national average gas price was $0.62 and a nice 3-bedroom Spanish style home on the Westside would have set you back $80,000. The spaceship, about the size of a subcompact car, discovered the first extraterrestrial volcanic activity and continues to explore uncharted cosmic regions beyond our solar system.
Voyager has traveled more than 15 billion miles from Earth (it’s newer twin Voyager 2 has traveled some 12 billion) in its 46-year journey. They were designed to last five years and long ago met the project goals of examining Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune close up. The ancient plutonium-powered computers onboard Voyager I are still functional and send flight data and information from sensors and science instruments back to JPL in binary code and the communication system hasn’t had a major glitch since 1981.
Now, those ones and zeroes keep repeating, and it’s been this way since before Thanksgiving. Every attempt to fix the problem takes days to realize. “If I come in on a Monday morning and I say ‘Hiya Voyager, how you doing?” project manager Suzanne Dodd says in the new documentary It's Quieter in the Twilight. “It’s gonna take me ‘til Tuesday afternoon that I get a response back.” Dodd has been on the mission for 39 years and was one of the senior scientists who tried turning it off and turning it back on, but that didn’t work. They are still hopeful the problem will be resolved in a few weeks.
Dodd is one of 12 staff members who continue to monitor the crafts, down from an initial crew of 1,200 that launched them. Many are veterans of the original mission in their 60s, 70s, and 80s who don’t want to retire and lose touch with the loneliest probe. Project Scientist Ed Stone, who started working on the Voyager project in 1972, retired last year after leading the project for half a century. “It may be a race between how long we as individuals live,” Dodd says in the doc. “Versus how long the spacecraft can still communicate with us.”

nice factoids...

SpaceNut · 2024-01-21 12:43:35

NASA hopes to get the Voyager spacecraft to their 50th anniversary with clever engineering and difficult choices

SpaceNut · 2024-09-11 19:18:45

NASA Switches Thrusters On Voyager 1 From 24,630,000,000 Kilometers Away

All this while working with just 69.63 kilobytes of memory, and running partly on code written in the archaic computer language Fortran 5.
When operational, the liquid hydrazine thruster should release tiny, extremely short puffs of gas in order to adjust the spacecraft and point it towards Earth, needing to do this about 40 times a day.
The spacecraft is actually equipped with three sets of thrusters, two for propulsion and one for trajectory correction. In 2002, the first propulsion thruster began to show signs of clogging and NASA switched to using the other, but this too began to show signs of clogging in 2018. Out on the edges of the Solar System and no longer performing any maneuvers, NASA switched to the trajectory correction thruster. However, that thruster is now even more clogged than the previous two, and NASA has spent months planning a switch back to one of the less-clogged thrusters.

Now I am dating myself to even claiming to have taken a course that had Fortran language for computers....

GW Johnson · 2024-09-12 09:55:56

Spacenut:

Don't feel too bad. My college training was in Fortran-II and what I used in industry was Fortran-IV. I sort of just picked up BASIC as I went to industry, using a version of it on my desktop, once those came out. Never learned anything newer.

GW

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#76 2005-05-24 19:47:39

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#77 2005-05-26 06:25:58

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#78 2005-06-02 12:50:49

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#79 2005-09-23 05:56:23

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#80 2006-02-16 07:33:35

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#81 2007-08-22 20:47:45

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#82 2007-12-17 11:57:42

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#83 2017-07-15 10:29:57

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#84 2017-12-02 14:52:59

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#85 2018-10-05 21:43:30

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#86 2019-11-05 08:39:31

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#87 2019-11-05 10:47:31

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#88 2019-11-05 17:52:32

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#89 2019-11-12 11:33:17

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#90 2019-11-12 19:41:04

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#91 2021-05-10 19:57:58

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#92 2022-12-30 17:05:31

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#93 2023-01-10 19:02:17

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#94 2023-04-25 20:27:23

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#95 2023-12-16 14:22:54

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#96 2024-01-21 12:43:35

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#97 2024-09-11 19:18:45

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