Voyager Spacecraft

[Kennywood]

I'll admit it. I'm a sucker for the Voyager spacecraft. September 5th will be the 45th anniversary of Voyager 1. Voyager 2 hit that milestone on August 20th. Not too shabby for vehicles that were originally supposed to last for only 5 years.

After getting some garbled information from Voyager 1, NASA has figured out the problem and the spacecraft is once again able to send telemetry back to Earth. Voyager 1 is now over 14 BILLION miles from Earth and is travelling at about 38,000 miles per hour.

Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have left our solar system and are now in interstellar space. That's simply amazing!

 

[2TxAgs]

It IS amazing what humans have accomplished! I wish we'd put really amazing, intelligent people on some of our other human problems....

 

[Communicore1991]

I thought Voyager 1 had been written off awhile back. It is amazing to have a spacecraft launched decades ago still able to provide us valuable information.

To put this accomplishment in perspective, it's like someone whispering in NYC and someone in Asia able to hear what they're saying!

 

[rwdavis2]

For some fun here is the web site for NASA’s Deep Space Netowrk:
DSN

You can see when many spacecraft are transmitting/receiving, the data rates, etc. Voyagers are sending back data at 159 bits per second.

 

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

Good grief...

 

[Flight]

Nice seeing news that is not full of tragedy.

This piece from that marvelous series, The West Wing, has a little story about Voyager that is worth hearing.

 

[Nabas]

This is probably the best Voyager documentary:

https://www.pbs.org/video/the-farthest-voyager-in-space-qpbu4y/

And the best book on Voyager:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-interstellar-age-jim-bell/1119859014

 

[DisneyTeacher]

Seeing this thread really brought back memories. My dad worked with Dr. Van Allen when I was growing up. He was a part of several projects with equipment on many probes including the Voyagers and Pioneer program.

 

[BrianL]

Seeing this thread really brought back memories. My dad worked with Dr. Van Allen when I was growing up. He was a part of several projects with equipment on many probes including the Voyagers and Pioneer program.

Wow, that's really cool!