archive: SETI Voyager mission status 2/1/99
SETI Voyager mission status 2/1/99
Larry Klaes ( lklaes@bbn.com )
Wed, 03 Feb 1999 17:52:32 -0500
>Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 16:52:26 -0800 (PST)
>From: JPL Media Relations Office <JPLNews@jpl.nasa.gov>
>To: news@www.jpl.nasa.gov
>Subject: Voyager mission status 2/1/99
>Sender: JPLNews@jpl.nasa.gov
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>MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
>JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
>CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
>NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
>PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
>http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
>
> Voyager Mission Status
> February 1, 1999
>
> Both Voyager spacecraft are healthy and are continuing to
>explore the environment at the very edge of the solar system,
>sending back particles, waves and fields data from the far outer
>heliosphere, the outermost region of the Sun's influence.
>
> Voyager 2 continues to operate normally after ground
>controllers regained contact with it in early November 1998. The
>flight team continues to use the spacecraft's alternate
>transmitter, which was enabled by safing software on board the
>craft when communications were briefly lost in November. Onboard
>software was modified late last year to ensure that the
>spacecraft would automatically attempt to reestablish radio
>communications with Earth if a similar problem were to occur.
>
> A sequence to turn off Voyager 2's scan platform was also
>completed on schedule in November. Voyager 1's scan platform will
>be turned off in mid-2000. Shut-down of the scan platforms is
>one of several planned actions to conserve electrical power as
>the plutonium naturally decays inside the Voyagers' onboard
>radioisotope thermoelectric generators. These actions to conserve
>electricity will extend the Voyagers' lifetimes through 2020.
>
> Five of Voyager 2's 11 science experiments - the cosmic ray
>instrument, low-energy charged particle instrument, plasma
>science instrument, plasma wave instrument and magnetometer --
>continue to gather and return data. The spacecraft, which is now
>8.6 billion kilometers (5.3 billion miles) from Earth, is
>departing the solar system at an angle 48 degrees to the south of
>the ecliptic plane at a speed of 15.9 kilometers per second
>(35,000 miles per hour). Round-trip light time from Earth to
>Voyager 2 - the time it takes for a radio signal to reach the
>spacecraft and for confirmation to be returned to Earth - is
>currently about 16 hours.
>
> Voyager 1, the most distant human-made object in space,
>continues to operate normally. The spacecraft, which is currently
>10.9 billion kilometers (6.8 billion miles) from Earth, is
>departing Earth's neighborhood at 35 degrees north of the
>ecliptic plane at a speed of about 17.3 kilometers per second
>(38,752 miles per hour). Round-trip light time from Earth to
>Voyager 1 is about 20 hours.
>
> #####
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