The little spacecraft that could

CBS News ^ | 11/19/2017 | Anderson Cooper

[Elderberry]

The Voyager mission was only supposed to last four years. But four decades after the launch of Voyager 1 and 2, the spacecraft are still sending back messages from the farthest reaches of the final frontier

When you think of legendary voyages of discovery you probably think of Columbus and Magellan, or Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. But what may be the greatest journey of exploration mankind has ever undertaken is happening right now. It began in 1977 when NASA launched two spacecraft named Voyager 1 & 2. The mission was only supposed to last four years, but now, 40 years later, against all odds, the two little spacecraft are still out there, traveling beyond the most distant planets in our solar system, reporting back on what they find. They're the outer-space equivalents of the Little Engine that Could. Nothing man-made has ever traveled so long and so far, and wherever they go, they carry with them a message from earth for any other lifeforms that may find them.

When Voyager 1 & 2 took off in August and September of 1977, they had cameras and sensors and something no other spacecraft ever had -- two golden records, filled with music.

"Johnny B. Goode" had no idea just how far he would go.

They've been going ever since. Giving us our first intimate views of the most distant planets in our solar system -- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and their distinctive moons. What the Voyagers found surprised scientists and made us think about our place in the universe in a whole new way. It was only possible because of a rare alignment of the planets.

Once every 176 years Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are lined up in such a manner you can swing by one onto the next

[Pollard]