How NASA Will Prolong the Lives of the Voyager Probes, 11 Billion Miles From Earth
Source: Gizmodo
How NASA Will Prolong the Lives of the Voyager Probes, 11 Billion Miles From Earth
George Dvorsky
Today 4:10pm Filed to: VOYAGER PROBES
Launched 42 years ago, the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes are now exploring the outer realms of our solar system. Sadly, the end of the mission is now firmly in sight, but NASA has a plan to keep the probes operational for as long as possible before their power finally runs out.
Voyager 1 and 2 were launched in 1977 within 16 days of one another. Both probes visited Jupiter and Saturn, but Voyager 2 was sent on a trajectory that saw it zip past Uranus and Neptune. Since then, the probes have journeyed increasingly farther into deep space, traveling at speeds approaching 56,000 kilometers per hour (35,000 miles per hour). The probes are now more than 18 billion kilometers (11 billion miles) away from Earth. Voyager 1, the farthest of the two, is so far away that a radio signal from Earth traveling at the speed of light requires 20 minutes to reach the probe.
Sadly, and like all good things, this historic mission will eventually come to an end. The probes are expected to keep working until the mid 2020s, after which time they won’t have enough power to supply their heaters. Eventually, the onboard components will freeze, turning the probes into two dead chunks of metal careening through space.
But while the end of the mission is inevitable, NASA is not going to let the probes go gentle into that good celestial void. As the agency noted in a recent press release, Voyager engineers are contemplating some adjustments intended to prolong the life of the probes to the greatest extent possible. NASA’s new “power management plan” is intended to keep the Voyager probes working such that scientific data can continue to be collected at the heliopause, the boundary between the solar wind (particles released by the Sun’s corona) and interstellar space.
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Read more: https://gizmodo.com/how-nasa-will-prolong-the-lives-of-the-voyager-probes-1836219431
The position of Voyager 2 as of December 2018. Note the vast distances condensed into an exponential scale: Earth is 1 astronomical unit (AU) from the Sun; Saturn is at 10 AU, and the heliopause is at around 120 AU. Neptune is 30.1 AU from the Sun; thus the edge of interstellar space is around four times as far from the Sun as the last planet. (NASA/JPL)
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