Voyager Spacecraft beginning to Power Down

[Tom.G]

An interesting article on some of the history of, and discoveries by, the 44+ year old Voyager spacecraft s.

The bean counters originally planned a 4 year mission for Voyagers 1&2. However, the scientists and engineers involved saw a golden opportunity that wouldn't repeat for another 176 years.

“But if an engineer had a choice to put in a part that was 10 percent more expensive but wasn't something that was needed for a four-year mission, they just went ahead and did that. And they wouldn't necessarily tell management.”

The crafts use thermoelectric power from decaying radioactives, and they are decaying. There is probably enough power for another 10 years if some of the experiments are shut down.

Voyager 2 is now 18 Billion (18×10⁹) miles away, with a oneway radio link delay of 18hrs. (per the article) using a 23 Watt transmitter and 12ft. dish antenna.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/record-breaking-voyager- spacecraft -begin-to-power-down/

Cheers,
Tom

 

[DennisN]

The bean counters originally planned a 4 year mission for Voyagers 1&2. However, the scientists and engineers involved saw a golden opportunity that wouldn't repeat for another 176 years.

“But if an engineer had a choice to put in a part that was 10 percent more expensive but wasn't something that was needed for a four-year mission, they just went ahead and did that. And they wouldn't necessarily tell management.”

That's so fun and cool!

 

[Vanadium 50]

And they wouldn't necessarily tell management

A good story, but I find that a bit hard to swallow. Somebody had to sign off on the RTG, no? And it's not like you can buy them at "Scooters Bait, Tackle and RTGs".