Posted on 12/24/2010 10:21:58 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Aerojet, a GenCorp company, celebrates NASA's recent announcement that Voyager 1 has reached a point at the edge of our solar system where there is no outward motion of solar wind. Now approximately 10.8 billion miles from the sun, Voyager 1's passage through the heliosheath, the turbulent outer shell of the sun's sphere of influence, and the spacecraft's upcoming departure from our solar system, mark a major milestone as it will become mankind's first interstellar probe. In about 40,000 years, Voyager 1 will drift within 1.6 light years (9.3 trillion miles) of AC+79 3888, a star in the constellation of Camelopardalis. Signals to command the thrusters now take more than 16 hours to reach the spacecraft.
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched in 1977, and are the oldest operational spacecraft. At launch, each spacecraft carried two propulsion systems, a Delta-V system, including four 100 lbf and four 5 lbf monopropellant hydrazine thrusters made by Aerojet, and an attitude control system including 16 0.2 lbf monopropellant hydrazine thrusters. The Delta-V systems have long since been jettisoned, but the attitude control systems remain operational today. The 100 lbf thrusters are the original version of the thrusters intended for Orion's crew module and the 0.2 lbf thrusters are the original version of the thrusters currently in use for the Global Positioning System Block IIR, and are similar to those newly in service for GPS Block IIF.
(Excerpt) Read more at asdnews.com ...
Simply amazing that it’s still functioning, 33 years later.
The Voyagers are suffering from a creeping paralysis. They should shut down around 2020.
Talk about a return on investment! How little did voyager cost?
The total cost of the Voyager mission from May 1972 through the Neptune encounter (including launch vehicles, radioactive power source (RTGs), and DSN tracking support) is 865 million dollars. At first, this may sound very expensive, but the fantastic returns are a bargain when we place the costs in the proper perspective. It is important to realize that:
1.on a per-capita basis, this is only 8 cents per U.S. resident per year, or roughly half the cost of one candy bar each year since project inception.
2.the entire cost of Voyager is a fraction of the daily interest on the U.S. national debt.
Money well spent is an understatement.
Trekkies will understand nthe reference.
I’m glad to see them still working after all these year as well as finding out what is really out there.
A lot less than it would have cost in a union shop.
Actually, they don’t really know how long they’ll be able to maintain the spacecraft in “operational mode.” Current projections indicate that the decline in power output from the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators will necessitate a phased powering down of each spacecraft’s scientific platforms over the next 10 - 15 years (+/- 3.5 years).
According to the latest reports from JPL the Voyager Interstellar Mission Science Platform on each craft will be able to continue operation at full power least until 2020. They will have to power down Voyager 1’s Data Tape Recorder operations around 2015. The gyroscopes will have to power down sometime late in 2016 on Voyager 1, and probably toward the end of 2015 on Voyager 2. This will be a major event, for after this there will be no way to rotate the spacecraft.
The sequence of shutdown of Interstellar Mission Science Instruments has not yet been determined, but sources at JPL predict that they will probably begin by powering-down the larger power-hogs so-as to allow longer operation of the more passive, lesser-demanding instrumentation. Sources indicate that the last of the VIM instruments to be turned off will probably be the Cosmic Ray Subsystem, though even authoritative sources at JPL admit it’s still all a guess. It is suspected that they’ll be trickling out power to fewer and fewer instruments plus the computer and the communications systems until eventually they’ll have to power the last science instrument down. The current estimation is that they won’t reach this point until sometime in 2025 or, maybe, 2026 (depending upon the sequence of science instrument shut-down).
Once they reach this point, JPL will send a signal to power down the computer and place the communications systems into a passive omni-directional-beacon mode. This will enable the communication system to continue pinging on a set frequency and with a predetermined cycle until there simply is no power left in the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators to maintain the ping. How long this will last no one knows. Thus far the rate of depletion of the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators has been significantly slower than originally anticipated, and it is suspected that when they power down the last of the VIM Science instruments they’ll still have sufficient power to operate the communications systems for an indeterminate period of time. It is conceivable that the omni-directional-beacon could go on pinging for several decades, and we should be able to detect that ping.
And to think they do all this with the computing power of say, a very basic hand calculator or a modern home digital dishwasher. Those original and current code writers deserve a bonus!
but keeps working,
does that mean we`ve outsourced it?
Yeah...and its got a location map for earth....
just hope the BORGS don't intercept and back track on it.
Visited DU lately? They are already here!
Bump
Aerojet since the startup days with Von Karmon at Cal Tech has always had very good if not the highest of technical expertise. Think of the solid and liquid rockets of all sizes produced by the company. Very good company to work for especially in the days of Dan Kimball.
Aerojet since the startup days with Von Karmon at Cal Tech has always had very good if not the highest of technical expertise. Think of the solid and liquid rockets of all sizes produced by the company. Very good company to work for especially in the days of Dan Kimball.
I heard, and then thought something stopped it dead in its track at the outer edge last year some time? was this a rumor, or were they able to get it moving again?
"As you can see it's menu from some sort of interstellar diner. I've instructed the helmsman to set a course for it at Warp 11."
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