VOYAGER
1 - FIRST MAN-MADE OBJECT TO VENTURE INTO INTERSTELLAR SPACE
The
Voyager 1 spacecraft is a 722-kilogram (1,590 lb) space probe
launched by the US space agency, NASA,
on September 5, 1977 to study the outer Solar System.
The Titan IIIE or Titan 3E, also known as Titan III-Centaur
was an American expendable launch system, launched voyager
1, voyager 2 on 5th sep and 20th Aug 1974 respectively. Operating
for 36 years and 10 days as of 15 September 2013, the spacecraft
communicates with the Deep Space Network to receive routine commands
and return data. At a distance of about 125 AU
from the Sun
as of August 2013, it is the farthest manmade object from Earth.
The
primary mission ended on November 20, 1980, after encounters with the Jovian system in 1979 and the Saturnian system in 1980. It was the first
probe to provide detailed images of the two planets and their moons.
As part of the Voyager program, and like its sister craft Voyager 2,
the spacecraft is in an extended mission, tasked with locating and studying the
boundaries of the Solar System, including the Kuiper belt
and the outer zones of the heliosphere, and finally to begin exploring the interstellar medium.
On
September 12, 2013, NASA announced that Voyager 1 had crossed the heliopause and entered interstellar space on August 25, 2012, making
it the first manmade object to do so. As of 2013, the probe was moving with a
relative velocity to the Sun of 17 kilometers per second (11 mi/s). The
amount of power available to the probe has decreased over time and will no
longer be able to power any single instrument by 2025.
Voyager
1 and its twin, Voyager 2, were launched 16 days apart in 1977. Both spacecraft
flew by Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 2 also flew by Uranus and Neptune.Voyager
2, launched before Voyager 1, is the longest continuously operated spacecraft.
It is about 15 billion km away from our Sun. Scientists are not certain when
Voyager 2 is expected to cross into interstellar space, but they believe it's
not very far behind.
No comments:
Post a Comment