Veteran explorer 11 billion miles from Earth
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 spacecraft is still performing it’s duties more than 30 years after leaving Earth. At the amazing distance of about 11 billion miles ( 17.4 km), the NASA probe is the most far-flung object made by humans. Its twin, Voyager 2, has traveled to more planets than any other in history.
The spacecraft twins, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, were launched by NASA during the summer of 1977 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Barring any fatal equipment failures, the Voyager twins are likely to survive and relay data from beyond the outer planets for many decades into the 21st century.
This week Voyager performed a series of roll manoeuvrings to get one of its instruments into the optimum position to measure particles sweeping away from the Sun.
Controllers at the US space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, report a perfect response from the probe.
“I liken Voyager like an old car,” said project manager Suzanne Dodds. “It’s got simple electronics, not a lot of fancy gadgets – but because of that it can operate for longer; it’s not as finicky.”
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Holte Ender
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It’s amazing it keeps working. I wonder how it maintains it’s attitude. You would think that any propellant would be exhausted by now. Or does it use gyros?
Go Voyager
Without doing research I would guess a solar powered battery pack.
Power
The spacecraft was built with 3 Multihundred-Watt radioisotope thermoelectric generators (MHW RTG). Each RTG includes 24 pressed plutonium oxide spheres and provide enough heat to generate approximately 157 watts of power at launch. Collectively, the RTGs supply the spacecraft with 470 watts at launch and will allow operations to continue until at least 2020.
(The preceding from wikipedia)
I’m afraid Ol’ Sol is but a speck of light at Voyager’s distance. Solar panels would be useless by now. Fascinating stuff. They don’t build them like they used to!