Posted on 05/08/2010 6:33:55 AM PDT by Dallas59
The first hint of a problem came on April 22, when engineers first spotted the data pattern change. Since then, they've been working to fix the glitch and began sending commands back to Voyager 2 on April 30.
Because Voyager 2 is so far from Earth, it takes 13 hours for a message to reach the spacecraft and another 13 hours for responses to come back to NASA's Deep Space Network of listening antennas around the world.
"Voyager 2's initial mission was a four-year journey to Saturn, but it is still returning data 33 years later," said Voyager project scientist Ed Stone of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "It has already given us remarkable views of Uranus and Neptune, planets we had never seen close-up before. We will know soon what it will take for it to continue its epic journey of discovery."
Voyager 2 took a so-called "grand tour" of the solar system when it visited the gas giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in the 1980s by taking advantage of a rare planetary alignment that occurs once every 176 years.
The two space probes were built primarily to study Jupiter and Saturn, but Voyager 2 also swing by Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989 during its extended mission.
NASA launched Voyager 2 on Aug. 20,1977, just two weeks before Voyager 1. Together, the two spacecraft are the most distant human-built objects in space. Voyager 1 is about 10.5 billion miles (16.9 billion km) away from Earth and in perfect health, mission managers said.
Now that’s a return on your investment.
When NASA does good it beats all odds....
Amazing!!! Well, that’s one time we got our money’s worth out of a government project.
lol
The Voyager missions, I would categorise, as the creme de la creme of NASA. That they got so much done with so less, speaks for itself.
Fascinating stuff, from beginning to now.
I guess you need the Germans to run the place, to get that level of achievement, LOL!
Maybe it’s still under warranty?
25 years old NASA. NASA now cannot hardly launch a kids rocket.
25 years old NASA. NASA now cannot hardly launch a kids rocket.
Have we outsourced warranty repairs to the Venusians yet?
Non-politically correct space cowboys who got ‘er done are likely all retired now.
Truly amazing - I only hope we can get our educational system re-structured so that all children will be able to access the best of math and science curriculum’s before the great teachers, without a political agenda, disappear.
"The planet Jupiter has a system of rings, known as the rings of Jupiter or the Jovian ring system. It was the third ring system to be discovered in the Solar System, after those of Saturn and Uranus. It was first observed in 1979 by the Voyager 1 space probe[1] and thoroughly investigated in the 1990s by the Galileo orbiter.[2] It has also been observed by the Hubble Space Telescope and from Earth for the past 25 years.[3] Ground-based observations of the rings require the largest available telescopes.[4]
The Jovian ring system is faint and consists mainly of dust.[1][5]"
How cold do you think it gets out there?
33 years and still a heart beat.
We build em good in the USA, eh ?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.