Launched in 1977, the twin Voyager probes they are NASA’s longest operating mission and the only spacecraft to have explored interstellar space.
NASA’s twin Voyager probes have become, in a way, time capsules of their era: each carries an eight-track tape player to record data, has regarding 3 million times less memory than modern cell phones and transmit data regarding 38,000 times slower than a 5G internet connection.
However, the Voyagers remain at the forefront of space exploration. Managed and operated by NASA’s JPL in Southern California, they are the only probes who have explored the interstellar spacethe galactic ocean through which our Sun and its planets travel.
The Sun and the planets reside in the heliosphere, a protective bubble created by the Sun’s magnetic field and the outflow of solar wind (charged particles from the Sun). Researchers, some of them younger than the two distant spacecraft, are combining Voyager’s observations with data from newer missions to get a most complete picture of our Sun and how the heliosphere interacts with interstellar space.
NASA’s Solar System Interactive (or NASA’s Interactive Solar System) allows users to see where the Voyagers are right now in relation to the planets, the Sun, and other spacecraft. It may look here. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
“The fleet of heliophysics missions provides invaluable information regarding our Sun, from understanding the corona, or the outermost part of the Sun’s atmosphere, to examining the Sun’s impacts throughout the solar system, including here on Earth. , in our atmosphere and in interstellar space,” said Nicola Fox, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Over the past 45 years, the Voyager missions have been integral in providing this knowledge and have helped change our understanding of the Sun and its influence in ways no other spacecraft can.”
The Voyagers are also ambassadors, each with a Golden disc containing images of life on Earth, diagrams of basic scientific principles, and audio that includes sounds of nature, greetings in multiple languages, and music. The gold-coated records serve as a cosmic “message in a bottle” for anyone who may encounter space probes. At the rate at which gold decays in space and is eroded away by cosmic radiation, the records will last more than a billion years.
beyond all expectation
The Voyager 2 was released on August 20, 1977, quickly followed by the Voyager 1 the 5th of September. Both probes traveled to Jupiter and Saturn, with Voyager 1 moving faster and reaching them first. Together, the probes revealed much regarding the solar system’s two largest planets and their moons. Voyager 2 also became the first and only spacecraft to fly near Uranus (in 1986) and Neptune (in 1989), offering humanity extraordinary views and information regarding these distant worlds.
While Voyager 2 was making these flybys, Voyager 1 was heading toward the edge of the heliosphere. Coming out of it in 2012, Voyager 1 discovered that the heliosphere blocks 70% of cosmic rays or energetic particles created by exploding stars. Voyager 2, following completing its planetary explorations, continued to the edge of the heliosphere and came out in 2018. The combined data from the twin spacecraft from this region has challenged previous theories regarding the exact shape of the heliosphere.
“Today, as both Voyagers explore interstellar space, they are providing humanity with observations of uncharted territory,” said Linda Spilker, associate Voyager project scientist at JPL. “This is the first time we have been able to directly study how a star, our Sun, interacts with particles and magnetic fields outside our heliosphere, helping scientists understand the local neighborhood between stars, changing some of the theories regarding this region and providing key information for future missions.”
the long journey
Over the years, the Voyager team has grown accustomed to overcoming the challenges that come with operating such a mature spacecraft, sometimes turning to retired colleagues for their expertise or digging through documents written decades ago.
Each Voyager runs on a radioisotope thermoelectric generator containing plutonium, which gives off heat that is converted into electricity. As the plutonium decays, the heat production decreases and the Voyagers lose electricity. To compensate, the team shut down all non-essential systems, but also some once considered essential, including heaters that protect still-functioning instruments from the frigid temperatures of space. All five instruments that have had their heaters turned off since 2019 are still working, despite being well below the lowest temperatures they were tested at.
Voyager 1 recently began experience a problem which caused information regarding the status of one of its onboard systems to be confused. Despite this, the system and spacecraft continue to function normally, suggesting that the problem is with the production of the status data, not the system itself. The probe continues to send back science observations while the engineering team tries to fix the problem or find a way to fix it.
“The Voyagers have continued to make amazing discoveries, inspiring a new generation of scientists and engineers,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at JPL. “We don’t know how long the mission will continue, but we can be sure that the spacecraft will provide even more scientific surprises as it moves away from Earth.”
More regarding the mission
A division of Caltech in Pasadena, JPL, built and operates the Voyager spacecraft. The Voyager missions are part of NASA’s Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information on the Voyager spacecraft, visit:
Edition: C. Gutiérrez.
https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/orrery/#/sc_voyager_1
