What is Voyager 2? NASA Reestablishes Contact With Voyager 2!

What is Voyager 2?

Mankind has been looking up at the stars  for centuries, wondering what lies out there   in deep space, and if there are  other civilizations like ours   that exist. We started using telescopes, but  when that wasn’t enough, advanced technology   led to the creation of space probes so we could  get a better look at our solar system and beyond. The Voyagers are two of the most iconic spacecraft  mankind has ever invented and launched into space,   and they’re still out there  hurtling through the cosmos. And after 7 months of silence the amazing  Voyager 2 once again called back home top Earth. Now get ready to find out more about these amazing  spacecraft, the incredible things they found,   where they are now, how far they have traveled  away from us, and what is in their future.  In the history of spaceflight, only five  spacecraft launched by humanity have the momentum   to leave our solar system. The Voyagers are two  of these spacecraft, and they ended up discovering   more than we thought they would, and have lasted  a lot longer than NASA predicted. 

We think they’re just not given the love they deserve, so we’re  going to tell you some really interesting things   about them you might not know, what they  have discovered, and where they are headed. Officially approved back in 1972, the  Voyager project was originally called   Mariner/Jupiter Saturn, and the probes were  previously named Mariner 11 and Mariner 12,   but NASA decided to change the name because these  two new probes had progressed sufficiently beyond   that of the Mariner spacecraft family. In  other words, they were much more advanced. Now, while we’re on the subject, it’s really  interesting to look at the technology and hardware   of these vintage probes. These spacecraft  were launched an astounding 44 years ago.   Voyager 2 on August 20, 1977, and Voyager 1 2  weeks later on September 5, 1977. This was at   a time when important advances were made in the  science of gravity-assisted orbital trajectories,   or in other words; the ability for spacecraft to  use the gravity of a nearby planet to give it a   large boost in velocity as long as the spacecraft  follows the intended or mapped out orbit. First, let’s talk about the computers, which are  identical in both spacecraft. 

Each computer system   aboard the Voyager spacecraft is dual-redundant,  meaning there was two of everything in the event   one computer system should fail. The computers  aboard the voyager probes each have just 69.63   kilobytes of memory, total. That’s only enough  space to store an average sized JPEG photo file. Each of the space probe’s scientific data is  encoded on old-fashioned digital 8-track tape   machines. However, they aren’t anything like your  grandfather’s 8-track stereo in his classic muscle   car. There aren’t any physical examples that  exist, or anything sitting in a museum somewhere,   but we do have a photo of it. Yes,  this is the data tape recorder that   was subcontracted to Lockheed and manufactured  by Odetics Corp for both Voyager spacecraft.   It could record data at two  different speeds: 115.2 kbps   and 7.2 kbps [kilobytes per second]. Playback  topped out at a much slower 57.6 kbps,   with 33.6, 21.6, and 7.2 kbps being options as  well. Exactly what the magnetic tape was made of,   and what secrets were used to keep it from  degrading in the harsh environment of space   is unclear. 

 NASA Reestablishes Contact With Voyager 2! 

Whatever those secrets are, they  seem to have worked because the DTR’s in both   spacecraft performed flawlessly from their launch,  through the entire Grand Tour mission, and even   the extended mission that set both of these  spacecraft on a course out of our solar system. The Voyager spacecraft computers are capable  of executing about 81,000 instructions per   second. Your smartphone that you might be  watching this video on is probably around   7500 times faster than that! They transmit  data back to Earth at 160 bits per second.   To give you an idea of that speed,  if you used this same connection,   it would take you around 8.5 years  to download a 5gb movie from netflix. But probably the most interesting  thing aboard each spacecraft,   the Voyagers have something no other  spacecraft have; a golden phonograph   record. These two gold-plated copper discs  contain 115 analog-encoded photographs,   greetings in 55 languages, and a 12-minute montage  of sounds on Earth, and 90 minutes of music. These   were made in the event an extraterrestrial  civilization ever finds one of the probes. Powering each spacecraft are three  plutonium dioxide radioisotope   thermoelectric generators or RTGs  mounted at the end of a boom. Each probe was fitted with 11  different scientific instruments,   which if we explained in detail  would take easily over an hour. 

(narrator - do not narrate) (video  editor - put on screen as text)  [1. Imaging Science System (ISS) 2. Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS)  3. Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer (IRIS) 4. Planetary Radio Astronomy Experiment (PRA)  5. Photopolarimeter (PPS) 6. Triaxial Fluxgate Magnetometer (MAG)  7. Plasma Spectrometer (PLS) 8. Low-Energy Charged   Particles Experiment (LECP) 9. Plasma Waves Experiment (PWS)  10. Cosmic Ray Telescope (CRS) 11. Radio Science System (RSS)] Instead, let’s look at a few of the  exciting things the Voyager probes found,   and the images captured during their  missions using these instruments. Both spacecraft have been traveling  along different trajectories and at   different speeds. Voyager 1 is traveling  faster, at a speed of about 61,155.07   kilometers per hour [38,000 mph],  compared to Voyager 2's velocity of   56,327.04 kilometers per hour [35,000 mph]. 

Voyager 1 captured incredible images of Venus,   Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, and Uranus.  Voyager 1 also captured an incredible   image of Jupiter’s moon Io where a volcano  was seen erupting from the surface.   It was the first time ever that an active volcano  had been seen elsewhere in the solar system. But the most famous image Voyager 1 captured  was of the Earth, or what is famously known   as The Pale Blue Dot taken February  14, 1990 at a distance of 6 billion   kilometers [3.7 billion miles] away, and inspired  the title of Carl Sagan’s book; A Pale Blue Dot:   A Vision of the Human Future in Space. Voyager 2, on the other hand, began  transmitting images of Jupiter on April 24,   1979 that were put together to show a time-lapse  movie of the gas giant's atmospheric circulation,   including the infamous Great Red Spot storm  that is three-times the diameter of Earth.   Voyager 2 was able to do this because it made  closer passes to Jupiter and the Jovian moons. On August 25, 1989, Voyager 2 flew by Triton, one  of Neptune’s moons. The Voyager 2 data was used   to construct this video of its exciting encounter,  and showed us Jupiter as we had never seen before. Between them, Voyager 1 and 2 explored all of  the giant planets of our outer solar system,   and 48 moons, a unique system of rings, and the  magnetic fields of each of the outer planets. But this wouldn’t be all  Voyager 1 and 2 would discover,   as you’re about to find out. In fact,  they would encounter something far   more mysterious and unknown, and  something they weren’t even designed for. 

Voyager 1 

Voyager 1 entered interstellar space on August 25,   2012, and was the first  human-made object to do so, As Voyager 1 left the heliosphere, which is  a giant bubble of charged particles that the   sun blows around itself, the probe recorded  a 1,000-fold drop in heliosphere particles   and a 9% increase in galactic cosmic rays  that come from outside the solar system. Since flying into interstellar space,  Voyager 1 has sent back some information   about the conditions in this dark zone of the  universe. One of those discoveries is that the   cosmic radiation out there is very intense and  demonstrates how charged particles from the sun   interact with particles emitted by other  stars, and how this bubble of charged   particles protects everything inside our  solar system from those deadly cosmic rays. On November 5, 2018, Voyager 2 became the second  spacecraft ever to enter interstellar space when   the probe registered a sudden decrease in  solar wind particles emanating from the Sun,   and at the same time, it also experienced  an increase in galactic cosmic rays   and the strength of the  interstellar magnetic field. Voyager 1 has continued to astound engineers  when in December 2017, it successfully used its   backup thrusters to orient itself so that we  could communicate with it back here on Earth.   Those thrusters hadn’t been used  since November 1980 during Voyager   1’s flyby of Saturn. How’s that for reliability? The Voyager probes are always sending out  a signal. Each probe has a 22.4-watt radio   transmitter, which is about equivalent  to a tiny refrigerator light bulb.   The mind blowing thing is that by the time its  signal reaches us, the power has been reduced to   roughly 0.1 billion-billionth of a watt! It’s  so small that NASA has to use its Deep Space   Network array of giant radio antennas together  which consist of three facilities spaced apart   from each other around the world; the Madrid Deep  Space Communications Complex - The Canberra Deep   Space Communication Complex in Australia, and  the massive 70-meter [230-foot] antenna at the   Goldstone Deep Space Communications  Complex in Barstow, California. The sensitivity of NASA's deep-space  tracking antennas located around the world   is truly incredible. These huge antennas  must capture Voyager information from a   signal so weak that the power striking  the antenna is only 10 exponent -16   watts [1 part in 10 quadrillion].  A modern electronic digital watch   operates at a power level 20 billion times  greater than this incredibly feeble level. And we’re not done talking to the  Voyagers just yet. On October 29,   2020, mission operators sent a series of commands  to Voyager 2 after a long 7-month silence.   The spacecraft had been flying solo while the  70-meter antenna at the Goldstone Deep Space   Communications Complex was being repaired and  upgraded. The amazing thing is that after all   these years and the fact that Voyager 2  is in interstellar space, it returned a   signal confirming it had received the call and  executed its new commands without any issues. As of January 2022, Voyager 1  is 23.3 billion kilometers from   Earth [14.5 billion miles] and Voyager 2 is 19.3  billion kilometers [12 billion miles] from us. Most of the instruments have been shut down on  both of these probes in order to conserve power.   Voyager 1 is headed in towards the constellation  Ophiuchus, and in the year 40,272 AD,   it will come within 1.7 light years of  an obscure star in the constellation   

Ursa Minor called AC+79 3888. In about  40,000 years, Voyager 2 will come within   about 1.7 light years of a star called Ross 248  which lies in the constellation of Andromeda. But sadly, and much sooner than this, we’ll lose  contact with both of these spacecraft for good,   and they’ll pass silently into the interstellar  void. It would be interesting if one day,   in the very far and distant future, a civilization  out somewhere out there finds a Voyager and learns   to power it back up. If so, that primitive  hardware might spin back to life one last time. Stay tuned here to see if the  Voyagers find something new,   and to keep up with all the exciting things  happening in our universe. Thanks for watching!

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