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Voyager 1

Voyager 1 is a NASA space probe launched in 1977 to study the outer planets. It flew by Jupiter, Saturn, and Saturn's moon Titan, and is now the most distant human-made object from Earth. Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause in 2012, becoming the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space. It continues transmitting data as part of its extended mission to study the outer heliosphere and interstellar medium until around 2025.

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28 views1 page

Voyager 1

Voyager 1 is a NASA space probe launched in 1977 to study the outer planets. It flew by Jupiter, Saturn, and Saturn's moon Titan, and is now the most distant human-made object from Earth. Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause in 2012, becoming the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space. It continues transmitting data as part of its extended mission to study the outer heliosphere and interstellar medium until around 2025.

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alessia liko
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager

program to study the outer Solar System and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. It was
launched 16 days after its twin Voyager 2. It communicates through the NASA Deep Space
Network to receive routine commands and to transmit data to Earth. Real-time distance and velocity
data is provided by NASA and JPL.[5] At a distance of 162 AU (24 billion km; 15 billion mi) from Earth
as of November 2023,[5] it is the most distant human-made object from Earth.[6]

The probe made flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, and Saturn's largest moon, Titan. NASA had a choice of
either doing a Pluto or Titan flyby; exploration of the moon took priority because it was known to
have a substantial atmosphere.[7][8][9] 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.[10][11] Two years later, Voyager 1 began experiencing
a third "tsunami wave" of coronal mass ejections from the Sun that continued to at least December
15, 2014, further confirming that the probe is indeed in interstellar space.[12]

In a further testament to the robustness of Voyager 1, the Voyager team tested the
spacecraft's trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) thrusters in late 2017 (the first time these
thrusters had been fired since 1980), a project enabling the mission to be extended by two to three
years.[13] Voyager 1's extended mission is expected to continue until about 2025, when
its radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) will no longer supply enough electric power to
operate its scientific instruments.[14]

Mission background[edit]
History[edit]
During the 1960s, a Grand Tour to study the outer planets was proposed which prompted NASA to
begin work on a mission during the early 1970s.[15] Information gathered by the Pioneer 10 spacecraft
helped Voyager's engineers design Voyager to cope more effectively with the intense radiation
environment around Jupiter.[16] However, shortly before launch, strips of kitchen-grade aluminum
foil were applied to certain cabling to further enhance radiation shielding.[17]

Initially, Voyager 1 was planned as "Mariner 11" of the Mariner program. Due to budget cuts, the
mission was scaled back to be a flyby of Jupiter and Saturn and renamed the Mariner Jupiter-Saturn
probes. As the program progressed, the name was later changed to Voyager, since the probe
designs began to differ substantially from previous Mariner missions.[18]

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