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VOYAGER

The probe made flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, and Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. NASA had a choice of either conducting a Pluto or a Titan flyby. Exploration of Titan took priority because it was known to have a substantial atmosphere. Voyager 1 studied the weather, magnetic fields, and rings of the two gas giants and was the first probe to provide detailed images of their moons.

As part of the Voyager program and like its sister craft, Voyager 2, the spacecraft’s extended mission is to locate and study the regions and boundaries of the outer heliosphere and to begin exploring the interstellar medium. Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause and entered interstellar space on August 25, 2012, making it the first spacecraft to do so. Two years later, Voyager 1 began experiencing a third wave of coronal mass ejections from the Sun that continued to at least December 15, 2014, further confirming that the probe is in interstellar space.

In 2017, the Voyager team successfully fired the spacecraft’s trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) thrusters for the first time since 1980, enabling the mission to be extended by two to three years.^[13] Voyager 1‘s extended mission is expected to continue to return scientific data until at least 2025, with a maximum lifespan of 2030 when its radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) may supply enough electric power to return engineering data until 2036.

Spacecraft components

The 3.7 m (12 ft) diameter high-gain dish antenna used on the Voyager craft

Voyager 1 was built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). It has a bus shaped like a decagonal (ten-sided) prism. It has 16 hydrazine thrusters, three-axis stabilization gyroscopes, and referencing instruments to keep the probe’s radio antenna pointed toward Earth. Collectively, these instruments are part of the Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystem (AACS), along with redundant units of most instruments and eight backup thrusters.The spacecraft also included 11 scientific instruments to study celestial objects such as planets as it travels through space.
The radio communication system of Voyager 1 was designed to be used up to and beyond the limits of the Solar System. It has a 3.7-meter (12 ft) diameter high-gain Cassegrain antenna to send and receive radio waves via the three Deep Space Network stations on Earth. When Voyager 1 is unable to communicate with Earth, its digital tape recorder (DTR) can record about 67 kilobytes of data for later transmission. As of 2023, signals from Voyager 1 took more than 22 hours to reach Earth.
Power. Voyager 1 has three radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) mounted on a boom. Each MHW-RTG contains 24 pressed plutonium-238 oxide spheres.The RTGs generated about 470 W of electric power at the time of launch, with the remainder being dissipated as waste heat. The power output of the RTGs declines over time due to the 87.7-year half-life of the fuel and degradation of the thermocouples, but they will continue to support some of their operations until at least 2025.
Computers.
The Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystem (AACS) controls the spacecraft orientation. It keeps the high-gain antenna pointing towards Earth, controls attitude changes, and points the scan platform. The custom-built AACS systems on both Voyagers are the same.

Scientific Instruments

Locations of Voyager’s scientific instruments

Today, it’s hanging out about 22.3 light-hours away from Earth—that’s a staggering 24 billion kilometres (15 billion miles) into interstellar space. And it’s still zooming along at 61,000 km/h (38,000 mph) without ever needing to stop for gas or dodge traffic.

If everything stays on course, Voyager 1 will hit an incredible milestone on November 15, 2026—it’ll be exactly one light-day away from us. That’s 25.9 billion kilometres (16 billion miles), so far out that even light would take a full 24 hours to make the journey back.

What’s even more mind-blowing? This spacecraft was built with 1970s tech—its onboard computer is less powerful than today’s average smartwatch. Yet it’s still out there, bravely venturing deeper into the void, carrying a golden record filled with the sounds of Earth, in case it bumps into any curious aliens.
Voyager 1, the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, has been sending back invaluable data since its launch in 1977. Among its many discoveries, one of the most intriguing is the detection of a persistent low-frequency sound known as the “cosmic hum.”

The cosmic hum refers to a continuous background noise detected by Voyager 1’s instruments as it travels through the vast expanse of interstellar space. This sound is not a traditional noise but rather a series of low-frequency plasma waves generated by interactions between solar wind and the interstellar medium. The hum is primarily composed of waves in the range of 20 to 100 hertz, which fall below the range of human hearing.

Voyager 1’s Plasma Wave Science instrument, designed to measure electric fields in space, has been crucial in detecting this cosmic hum. As Voyager 1 moved beyond the influence of our solar system and into interstellar space in 2012, it began to pick up these low-frequency plasma waves, which are produced by various cosmic phenomena, including:

Solar Wind Interactions: The solar wind, a stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun, interacts with the interstellar medium—the matter that exists in the space between stars. These interactions create fluctuations in plasma density, resulting in the cosmic hum.

Interstellar Medium: The hum provides information about the density and composition of the interstellar medium, offering insights into how matter is distributed in our galaxy.

Voyager 1 is now in a region of space where no spacecraft has ever been! The hum helps scientists study the conditions and properties of interstellar space, including temperature, density, and magnetic fields.

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I would like to think of myself as a full time traveler. I have been retired since 2006 and in that time have traveled every winter for four to seven months. The months that I am "home", are often also spent on the road, hiking or kayaking. I hope to present a website that describes my travel along with my hiking and sea kayaking experiences.