In a bit of space news that nearly made me tear up, it looks like NASA JPL has been able to successfully fire a thruster system on Voyager 1 that hasn’t been used since 1980! These small rocket motors, designed to fire in long-duration burns for course correction, will be used in upcoming years to […]
40 years ago, the twin Voyager 1 and 2 space probes were just starting on their historic journeys to the outer solar system. Voyager 1 destined to visit Saturn and Jupiter, Voyager 2 destined to not only study those planets, but also to be the first, and still only probe to fly by Uranus and […]
40 years ago today, on September 5th, 1977, Voyager 1 was launched from Launch Complex 41 on the final Titan III-E booster to fly. Voyager 1 was launched after Voyager 2, on a trajectory which put it ahead in its encounters of Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 1 would later begin flying up and away from […]
The identical twin to Voyager 2, Voyager 1, was launched on September 5th 1977. While launched after Voyager 2, it was launched with a more direct trajectory and as a result quickly moved ahead to reach Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980 with its last major flyby being Saturn’s moon Titan. Voyager 1 would […]
The Voyager space probes, the furthest man-made objects from Earth, were launched 40 years ago this upcoming week (in the case of Voyaged 2, launched August 20th 1977 – Voyager 1 was launched later, in September of 77), and as such NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are doing a bit of a celebration, to […]