voyager 1 & 2

[Analog6 (Odille)]

are still going! Article in the SMH today.

As one is 17.5 billion and one 14 billion kms from earth, how long would those signals be taking to get to earth?

[Hans Tucker (Hans)]

From the articles I have been reading on Voyager 1 it takes around 16 hours to receive data back to earth.

[Blue Skies (Jacquie)]

A back of the envelope calculation gives me 13 hours for 14 billion kms and 16 hours for 17.5 billion km. Pluto is about light 4 hours away by comparison.

[astroron (Ron)]

My Two favourite Space Craft
Just imagine still going till 2020
Thanks for posting Odille

[Esseth (Alan)]

Yeah have to give them a nod of respect don't you.

[tlgerdes (Trevor)]

One day the Star Trek movie may come true.

[Liz]

Originally Posted by tlgerdes

One day the Star Trek movie may come true.

I know, I thought of that too when I read that article a couple of days ago.
Interesting stuff though.

[flyingbaby (Allan Chan)]

Cant believe the nuclear power can perform so well and so long and the heater on board work flawlessly for so many years....

[bartman (Bart)]

To Infinity and Beyond!!!!

[Ric]

I was reading an article the other day where one of the Voyagers' has now passed beyond the influence of the solar wind and has moved into what is considered interstellar space.

That's a long way from home for sure.

Cheers

[CraigS]

Some comparative position info on Pioneers 10 & 11, Voyagers 1 & 2 and New Horizons here.

As at Dec 18, 2010, Voyager 1 is still winning in the speed department (relative to the Sun).

Also interesting is the power situation. Wiki says ..

As of September 25, 2009 the power generated by Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 had dropped to 276.4 W and 277.6 W respectively. This is about 58% of the power at launch.

As the power diminishes, they have to turn off loads.

The Telemetry rates are painfully slow by today's standards, also .. real time feeds operate at about 600 bps down to 40 bps. Recorded info download is higher though, at 7.2 kbps or 1.4kbps.

One of them seems to have developed a permanent 'bit flip' problem which caused a 2 week data loss, mid this year. - No wonder the Enterprise had problems in communicating .. the Klingons learned the hard way, too !

Didn't 'Vega' end up getting the girl in the movie ?

Cheers

[Analog6 (Odille)]

They have certainly turned into the little spacecraft that could!

[Kevnool (Kev)]

Originally Posted by Analog6

They have certainly turned into the little spacecraft that could!

Yep they built them tough back then.
Cheers Kev.

[AstralTraveller (David)]

What a journey! I've just realised that the Voyagers were launched a couple of months before I met my better half. Sort of puts the time frame in perspective for me.

[Jen]

Originally Posted by tlgerdes

One day the Star Trek movie may come true.

[tlgerdes (Trevor)]

Originally Posted by CraigS

Didn't 'Vega' end up getting the girl in the movie ?

Cheers

It was V'Ger, not Vega

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by tlgerdes

It was V'Ger, not Vega

Don't worry 'bout it Trevor … I was saying "V'Ger" in my mind … I just didn't know how to translate it into text !!

Originally Posted by Ric

I was reading an article the other day where one of the Voyagers' has now passed beyond the influence of the solar wind and has moved into what is considered interstellar space.

That's a long way from home for sure.

Cheers

Found an article, dated Dec 13:

Scientists believe Voyager 1 has not crossed the heliosheath into interstellar space. Crossing into interstellar space would mean a sudden drop in the density of hot particles and an increase in the density of cold particles. Scientists are putting the data into their models of the heliosphere's structure and should be able to better estimate when Voyager 1 will reach interstellar space. Researchers currently estimate Voyager 1 will cross that frontier in about four years.

… don't take this the wrong way here, Ric ... I'm only quoting this to make the point that it seems they're still defining the boundary conditions … courtesy of the live data sent back … all from a 33 year old spacecraft !
(I would've said it was interstellar space before I read this, also).

Awesome stuff … it is still telling us what to make of it all !!

Amazing stuff !!

Hats off to the guys who built these things .. I think Ed Stone, who is mentioned in the article, is one of the original designers (?) !!

I'll bet they never factored these discoveries into the 'business case' for the Voyager project, before the project began !

Cheers

[Ric]

No worries Craig, four years will pass pretty quickly.

It's amazing to think how far the Sun's influence does extend.

Cheers