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NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is depicted in this artist’s concept traveling through interstellar space, or the space between stars, which it entered in 2012. Traveling on a different trajectory, its twin, Voyager 2, entered interstellar space in 2018. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NASA’s Voyager mission team is addressing challenges to ensure prolonged functionality of the two spacecraft. They’re mitigating thruster fuel residue issues and implementing a software patch to rectify a previous Voyager 1 glitch. The efforts should help extend the lifetimes of the agency’s interstellar explorers. Engineers for NASA’s Voyager mission are taking steps to help make sure both spacecraft,...

NASA's twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft were launched in 1977 and both are now in interstellar space. NASA says communication with Voyager 2 has been disrupted due a technical glitch. File Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo July 31 (UPI) -- Communications with the far-flung Voyager 2 space probe have been temporarily severed due to unintended consequences resulting from routine commands, NASA says. The U.S. space agency revealed Friday it no longer is able to communicate with the pioneering spacecraft launched in 1977 and meant to serve as an ambassador of human civilization to any extraterrestrial intelligence it...

Being rather unwoke, I was mystified as to why it is forbidden to utter “all lives matter” or allude in any way to the horrific frequency of black-on-black urban crime. It turns out that merely being opposed to racism is not the same as being antiracist. Who knew? “Antiracist” requires adherence to the precept that all disparities are attributable to race and only to race. Therefore, anything that distracts from, complicates, or contradicts that precept is itself a racist act, even if factually true. (The spectacular anti-intellectualism of the defective products coming out of our universities is stunning.) Once I...

Voyager 2 has entered interstellar space. The spacecraft slipped out of the huge bubble of particles that encircles the solar system on November 5, becoming the second ever human-made craft to cross the heliosphere, or the boundary between the sun and the stars.Coming in second place is no mean achievement. Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to exit the solar system in 2012. But that craft’s plasma instrument stopped working in 1980, leaving scientists without a direct view of the solar wind, hot charged particles constantly streaming from the sun (SN Online: 9/12/13). Voyager 2’s plasma sensors are still working,...

NASA's Deep Space Network personnel sent commands to the Voyager 2 spacecraft Nov. 4 to switch to the backup set of thrusters that controls the roll of the spacecraft. Confirmation was received today that the spacecraft accepted the commands. The change will allow the 34-year-old spacecraft to reduce the amount of power it requires to operate and use previously unused thrusters as it continues its journey toward interstellar space, beyond our solar system. Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are each equipped with six sets, or pairs, of thrusters to control their movement. These include three pairs of...

NASA's plucky Voyager 2 spacecraft has hit a long-haul operations milestone - operating continuously for 12,000 days. For nearly 33 years, the venerable spacecraft has been returning data about the giant outer planets, and the characteristics and interaction of solar wind between and beyond the planets. Among its many findings, Voyager 2 discovered Neptune's Great Dark Spot and its 450-meter-per-second (1,000-mph) winds. The two Voyager spacecraft have been the longest continuously operating spacecraft in deep space. Voyager 2 launched on August 20, 1977, when Jimmy Carter was president. Voyager 1 launched about two weeks later on Sept. 5. The two...

December 23, 2009: The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist. In the Dec. 24th issue of Nature, a team of scientists reveal how NASA's Voyager spacecraft have solved the mystery. "Using data from Voyager, we have discovered a strong magnetic field just outside the solar system," explains lead author Merav Opher, a NASA Heliophysics Guest Investigator from George Mason University. "This magnetic field holds the interstellar cloud together and solves the long-standing puzzle of how it can exist at all." The discovery has implications for the future when the solar system will...

<p>"This is a very exciting time, said Voyager project scientist Edward Stone. "Voyager is beginning to explore the final frontier of the solar system."</p> <p>Scientists analyzing data from Voyager 1 disagree as to whether the probe has yet crossed over the critical boundary that marks the transition from our solar system into interstellar space. But even dissenters agree that if it has not crossed that boundary, called terminal shock, it is very close.</p>