What an amazing pair of crafts the Voyagers are. To have done so much and survived so long… it commands a certain respect. As silly as it might sound, I find it difficult to not personify them to...
What an amazing pair of crafts the Voyagers are. To have done so much and survived so long… it commands a certain respect. As silly as it might sound, I find it difficult to not personify them to some degree, even though they’re “just” machines. It’ll be a sad day when they eventually cease to communicate.
Wow, this makes it seem like the Voyager 1 mission is coming to an end. A couple years left on one set of thrusters and a couple years on another? That’s not all that much in the face of how long...
Wow, this makes it seem like the Voyager 1 mission is coming to an end. A couple years left on one set of thrusters and a couple years on another? That’s not all that much in the face of how long the mission has been going so far.
The Voyager team has pulled some incredible saves to get this far, and there’s a (perhaps irrational?) part of me that expects they’ll do it again somehow to keep the probes alive. I guess only time will tell.
Dumb question, but why would the mission end if the thrusters stop working? Won't Voyager just keep going? I figured the mission ends when communication becomes the issue.
Dumb question, but why would the mission end if the thrusters stop working? Won't Voyager just keep going? I figured the mission ends when communication becomes the issue.
That's exactly right. Voyager 1 needs to regularly adjust its attitude so that it can maintain radio contact with Earth, since both it and our planet are moving relative to the sun. No thrusters,...
I figured the mission ends when communication becomes the issue.
That's exactly right. Voyager 1 needs to regularly adjust its attitude so that it can maintain radio contact with Earth, since both it and our planet are moving relative to the sun. No thrusters, no communication, mission complete.
"attitude (noun): the position of a craft (such as an aircraft or spacecraft) determined by the relationship between its axes and a reference datum (such as the horizon or a particular star)"...
Voyager 1 needs to regularly adjust its attitude so that it can maintain ratio contact with Earth
"attitude (noun): the position of a craft (such as an aircraft or spacecraft) determined by the relationship between its axes and a reference datum (such as the horizon or a particular star)"
Cool, never knew that meaning of the word. Here I was giggling picturing Voyager 1 sassing up the scientists on Earth.
As long as we're anthropomorphizing, one thing you can't fault Voyager for is not being cooperative. It's been dutifully chugging away for longer than I've been alive.
As long as we're anthropomorphizing, one thing you can't fault Voyager for is not being cooperative. It's been dutifully chugging away for longer than I've been alive.
It’s not a dumb question! Honestly, it makes me wonder if maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the mission, just the end of regular contact with the probe. Eventually the probe has to be well-ish...
It’s not a dumb question! Honestly, it makes me wonder if maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the mission, just the end of regular contact with the probe.
Eventually the probe has to be well-ish aligned enough to make contact in a “stopped clock is right twice a day” kind of way. The only question is how often that might happen, if it’s possible at all.
Voyager 1 is currently 14.5 billion miles (23.3 billion kilometers) from Earth, and it takes light 20 hours and 33 minutes to travel that difference. That means it takes roughly two days to send a message to Voyager 1 and get a response.
For anyone curious, we're about 5 years away from Voyager 1 being a full light day from Earth. Whether or not the thruster clogging issue keeps it from reaching the 5 year mark and still...
For anyone curious, we're about 5 years away from Voyager 1 being a full light day from Earth. Whether or not the thruster clogging issue keeps it from reaching the 5 year mark and still communicating with Earth is another story. The trajectory thrusters it's been using for the last 6 years are practically useless at this point, the second set of attitude propulsion thrusters lasted 16 years before they were too clogged to be reliable, so we're back on the first set of attitude propulsion thrusters which were switched away from because of clogging.
Hurry, send someone out there with a pipe cleaner!
What an amazing pair of crafts the Voyagers are. To have done so much and survived so long… it commands a certain respect. As silly as it might sound, I find it difficult to not personify them to some degree, even though they’re “just” machines. It’ll be a sad day when they eventually cease to communicate.
Wow, this makes it seem like the Voyager 1 mission is coming to an end. A couple years left on one set of thrusters and a couple years on another? That’s not all that much in the face of how long the mission has been going so far.
The Voyager team has pulled some incredible saves to get this far, and there’s a (perhaps irrational?) part of me that expects they’ll do it again somehow to keep the probes alive. I guess only time will tell.
Dumb question, but why would the mission end if the thrusters stop working? Won't Voyager just keep going? I figured the mission ends when communication becomes the issue.
That's exactly right. Voyager 1 needs to regularly adjust its attitude so that it can maintain radio contact with Earth, since both it and our planet are moving relative to the sun. No thrusters, no communication, mission complete.
"attitude (noun): the position of a craft (such as an aircraft or spacecraft) determined by the relationship between its axes and a reference datum (such as the horizon or a particular star)"
Cool, never knew that meaning of the word. Here I was giggling picturing Voyager 1 sassing up the scientists on Earth.
As long as we're anthropomorphizing, one thing you can't fault Voyager for is not being cooperative. It's been dutifully chugging away for longer than I've been alive.
It’s not a dumb question! Honestly, it makes me wonder if maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the mission, just the end of regular contact with the probe.
Eventually the probe has to be well-ish aligned enough to make contact in a “stopped clock is right twice a day” kind of way. The only question is how often that might happen, if it’s possible at all.
I wonder how long it takes to get a message to Voyager.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/engineers-investigating-nasas-voyager-1-telemetry-data
For anyone curious, we're about 5 years away from Voyager 1 being a full light day from Earth. Whether or not the thruster clogging issue keeps it from reaching the 5 year mark and still communicating with Earth is another story. The trajectory thrusters it's been using for the last 6 years are practically useless at this point, the second set of attitude propulsion thrusters lasted 16 years before they were too clogged to be reliable, so we're back on the first set of attitude propulsion thrusters which were switched away from because of clogging.
Hurry, send someone out there with a pipe cleaner!