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VOYAGER MISSIONtaking mankind beyond imagination

The budding idea!The Voyager Program was similar to the Planetary Grand Tour planned during the late 1960s and early 70s. Special alignment of outer planets discovered by Gary Flandro, an aerospace engineer This alignment, which occurs once every 175 years, would occur in the late 1970s and make it possible to use gravitational assists to explore Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

Spacecraft designThe Voyager spacecraft weigh 773 kilograms. Of this, 105 kilograms are scientific instruments. The identical Voyager spacecraft use three-axis-stabilized guidance systems that use gyroscopic and accelerometer inputs to their altitude control computers to point their high-gain antennas towards the Earth. The scan platform comprises: the Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer (IRIS) (largest camera at top right); the Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS); the two Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) vidicon cameras to the left of the UVS; and the Photopolarimeter System (PPS) under the ISS.

CommunicationsThe uplink communications are executed via S-band microwave communications. The downlink communications are carried out by an X-band microwave transmitter on board the spacecraft, with an S-band transmitter as a back-up. All long-range communications to and from the two Voyagers have been carried out using their 3.7-meter high-gain antennas.Because of the inverse-square law in radio communications, the digital data rates used in the downlinks from the Voyagers have been continually decreasing the farther that they get from the Earth.

This has been a major problem for NASA . So between 1982 and 1989 they made major changes to their deep space network to reduce the effects of inverse square law.4

PowerElectrical power is supplied by three radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs). They are powered by plutonium-238 and provided approximately 470 W at 30 volts DC when the spacecraft was launched. Plutonium-238 decays with a half-life of 87.74 years, so RTGs using Pu-238 will lose a factor of 10.5(1/87.74) = 0.79% of their power output per year.By 7 October 2011 the power generated by Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 had dropped to 267.9 W and 269.2 W respectively, about 57% of the power at launch. As the electrical power decreases, spacecraft loads must be turned off, eliminating some capabilities.

When did they launch?From the NASA Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral, FloridaVoyager 2 was launched first, on August 20, 1977Voyager 1 was launched on a faster, shorter trajectory on September 5, 1977.

What was their mission?The primary mission was the exploration of Jupiter and Saturn. After making a string of discoveries there -- such as active volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io and intricacies of Saturn's rings -- the mission was extended. Voyager 2 went on to explore Uranus and Neptune, and is still the only spacecraft to have visited those outer planets.

What is their mission now?The adventurers' current mission, the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM), will explore the outermost edge of the Sun's domain. And beyond. This extended mission is continuing to characterize the outer solar system environment and search for the heliopause boundary, the outer limits of the Sun's magnetic field and outward flow of the solar wind. Penetration of the heliopause boundary between the solar wind and the interstellar medium will allow measurements to be made of the interstellar fields, particles and waves unaffected by the solar wind.

What path did they follow?

Where are they now?http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/where/index.html

*As on 25-02-2017 01:33

Cash me ousside, how bow dah?On 15 June 2012, scientists at NASA reported that Voyager 1 was very close to entering interstellar space, indicated by a sharp rise in high-energy particles from outside the Solar System. In September 2013, NASA announced that Voyager 1 had crossed the heliopause on August25, 2012, making it the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space

The slow death!As of 2017, after almost 40 years of launch of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, they continue to monitor conditions in the outer expanses of the Solar System. The Voyager spacecraft are expected to be able to operate science instruments through 2020, when limited power will require instruments to be deactivated one by one. Sometime around 2025, there will no longer be sufficient power to operate any science instruments.

Murmurs of EarthNASA placed a more ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2-a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extra-terrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earth-people in fifty-five languages including hindi and gujrati.

By the time you got to know about the Voyagers, they have already moved about 20,000km further into the deep space since the beginning of this presentation and still going further