Voyager Program

Voyager program

Introduction
The Voyager program is a U.S program that launched two unmanned space missions, scientific probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.

History
The Voyager probes were originally conceived as part of the Mariner program, and designated Mariner 11 and Mariner 12, respectively. They were then moved into a separate program named Mariner Jupiter-Saturn, later retitled Voyager because it was felt that the probes' designs had moved sufficiently far from the Mariner family that they merited a separate name. Voyager is essentially a scaled-back version of the Grand Tour program of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Grand Tour's plan was to send a pair of probes to fly by all the outer planets; it was scaled back because of budget cuts. In the end, Voyager fulfilled all the Grand Tour flyby objectives except for Pluto, which at the time was considered a planet by the IAU.

Achievements
On December 10, 2007, instruments on board Voyager 2 sent data back to Earth indicating that the solar system is asymmetrical. In August 2009 Voyager 1 was over 16.5 terameters (16.51012 meters, or 16.5109 km, 110.7 AU, or 10.2 billion miles) from the Sun, and thus had entered the heliosheath region between the solar wind's termination shock and the heliopause (the limit of the solar wind). By December 2010 Voyager 1 had reached a region of space where there was no net velocity of the solar wind. On Friday, June 10, 2011, "Scientists studying the Voyager data noticed what may be giant magnetic bubbles located in the heliosphere, the region of our solar system that separates us from the violent solar winds of interstellar space. The bubbles, scientists believe, form when the sun's magnetic field becomes warped at the edge of our solar system."

Spacecraft design
The Voyager spacecraft weighs 773 kilograms. Of this, 105 kilograms are scientific instruments. The identical Voyager spacecraft are threeaxis stabilized systems that use celestial or gyro referenced attitude control to maintain pointing of the highgain antennas toward Earth. The prime mission science payload consisted of 10 instruments (11 investigations including radio science).

Voyager interstellar mission

The Voyager primary mission was completed in 1989, with the close flyby of Neptune by Voyager 2. The Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM) is a mission extension, which began when the two spacecraft had already been in flight for over 12 years. The Heliophysics Division of the NASA Science Mission Directorate conducted a Heliophysics Senior Review in 2008. The panel found that the VIM "is a mission that is absolutely imperative to continue" and that VIM "funding near the optimal level and increased DSN (Deep Space Network) support is warranted."

The Voyager Golden Records

The Voyager Golden Record Cover of the Voyager Golden Record

The End

If you want more information visit: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/