These twin spacecrafts Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched by NASA in separate months during summer of 1977 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. As originally designed, the Voyagers were to conduct closeup studies of Jupiter and Saturn, Saturn’s rings, and the larger moons of the two planets.
To accomplish their two-planets mission, the spacecrafts were built to last for five years. But as the mission went on, with successful achievement of all their objectives, the additional flybys of the two outermost giant planets, Uranus and Neptune, proved possible — and irresistible to mission scientists and engineers located on the ground station in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
As the spacecrafts flew across the solar system, remote-control reprogramming were used to communicate with the Voyagers, with greater capabilities than they possessed at the time of departure from Earth. The two-planets mission became four including the two reminder of the outer planets which are Jupiter and Saturn. Their five-year lifetime mission stretched to 12 and is now near thirty years ago.
Eventually, between them, Voyager 1 and 2 would explore all the giant outer planets of our solar system, 48 of their moons, and the unique systems of rings and magnetic fields possess by those planets.
It was presumed that, had the Voyagers’ mission ended after the Jupiter and Saturn flybys alone, it still would have provided the material to rewrite astronomy textbooks. But having doubled their already ambitious itineraries, the Voyagers returned to Earth with information over the years that has revolutionized the science of planetary astronomy, helping to resolve key questions while raising intriguing new ones about the origin and evolution of the planets in our solar system.
These findings and others have continuously kept experts with similar backgrounds such as Aerospace Engineers, Astronomers, and the Aeronautics world performing maneuvers to expand on new discoveries which intend will revolutionize our world.
History Of The Voyager Mission
The Voyager mission was designed to take advantage of a rare geometric arrangement of the outer planets in the late 1970s and the 1980s which allowed for a four-planets tour for a minimum of propellant and trip time. The layout of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, which occurs about every 175 years, allowing a spacecraft on a particular flight path to swing from one planet to the next without the need for large onboard propulsion systems. The flyby of each planet bends the spacecraft’s flight path and increases its velocity enough to deliver it to the next destination. Using “gravity assist” technique, first demonstrated with NASA’s Mariner 10 Venus/Mercury mission in 1973-74, the flight time to Neptune was reduced from 30 years to 12 years.
While the four-planets mission was known to be possible, it was deemed to be too expensive to build a spacecraft that could travel those distances, carrying instruments needed and last long enough to accomplish such a long mission. Thus, the Voyagers were funded to conduct intensive flyby studies of Jupiter and Saturn only. More than 10,000 trajectories were studied before choosing the two that would allow close flybys of Jupiter and its large moon Io, and Saturn and its large moon Titan; the chosen flight path for Voyager 2 also preserved the option to continue on to Uranus and Neptune.
From NASA Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, Voyager 2 was launched first, on August 20, 1977; Voyager 1 was launched on a faster, shorter trajectory on September 5, 1977. Both spacecrafts were delivered to space aboard Titan-Centaur expendable rockets.
The prime Voyager mission to Jupiter and Saturn brought Voyager 1 to Jupiter on March 5, 1979, and Saturn on November 12, 1980, followed by Voyager 2 to Jupiter on July 9, 1979, and Saturn on August 25, 1981.
Voyager 1’s trajectory, designed to send the spacecraft closely past the large moon Titan and behind Saturn’s rings, bent the spacecraft’s path inexorably northward out of the ecliptic plane — the plane in which most of the planets orbit the Sun. Voyager 2 was aimed to fly by Saturn at a point that would automatically send the spacecraft in the direction of Uranus.
After Voyager 2’s successful Saturn encounter, it was shown that Voyager 2 would likely be able to fly on to Uranus with all instruments operating. NASA provided additional funding to continue operating the two spacecrafts and authorized JPL to conduct a Uranus flyby. Subsequently, NASA also authorized the Neptune mission, which was renamed the Voyager Neptune Interstellar Mission.
Voyager 2 encountered Uranus on January 24, 1986, returning detailed photos and other data of the planet, its moons, magnetic field and dark rings. Voyager 1, meanwhile, continues to press outward, conducting studies of interplanetary space. Eventually, its instruments may be the first of any spacecraft to sense the heliopause — the boundary between the end of the Sun’s magnetic influence and the beginning of interstellar space.
Following Voyager 2’s closest approach to Neptune on August 25, 1989, the spacecraft flew southward, below the ecliptic plane and onto a course that will take it, too, to interstellar space. Reflecting the Voyagers’ new transplanetary destinations, the project is now known as the Voyager Interstellar Mission.
Voyager 1 has crossed into the heliosheath and is leaving the solar system, rising above the ecliptic plane at an angle of about 35 degrees at a rate of about 520 million kilometers (about 320 million miles) a year. Voyager 2 is also headed out of the solar system, diving below the ecliptic plane at an angle of about 48 degrees and a rate of about 470 million kilometers (about 290 million miles) a year.
Both spacecrafts will continue to study ultraviolet sources among the stars, and the fields and particles instruments aboard the Voyagers. Both spacecrafts will continue to explore the boundaries between the Sun’s influence and interstellar space. The Voyagers are expected to return valuable data for at least another decade. Communications will be maintained until the Voyagers’ power sources can no longer supply enough electrical energy to power critical subsystems.