Author Topic: Voyager 2 soon to cross the termination shock  (Read 4048 times)

Offline eeergo

Voyager 1 has already crossed it, and is now heading for the heliopause, but since so few operational spacecraft have reached it, it's really intersting. Apparently, it could even cross it twice!

http://www.physorg.com/news115405331.html

-DaviD-

Offline simonbp

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Re: Voyager 2 soon to cross the termination shock
« Reply #1 on: 11/28/2007 01:19 pm »
It's absolutely incredible to me that we actually have spacecraft at the heliopause, the effective outer edge of the solar system. I just hope they can wrangle up enough DSN time to make it worth it..

Simon ;)

Offline DwightM

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Re: Voyager 2 soon to cross the termination shock
« Reply #2 on: 11/28/2007 07:20 pm »
Just a correction, Voyager 2 isn't at the heliopause - it's at the termination shock boundary.  The boundary is where the solar wind goes from supersonic to subsonic (& that boundary fluctuates).  The heliopause is much farther out and that's where the solar wind stops altogether.  Voyager 1 hasn't reached the heliopause yet either.

Offline William Graham

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Re: Voyager 2 soon to cross the termination shock
« Reply #3 on: 11/28/2007 08:21 pm »
Out of interest, where are Pioneers 10 and 11?

Offline HIPAR

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Re: Voyager 2 soon to cross the termination shock
« Reply #4 on: 11/28/2007 09:06 pm »
The two Voyager space machines get lots of attention.  You can read mission status reports about them here:

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/weekly-reports/index.htm

I wonder how many of the people who planned these missions are still working on them after 30 years?

---  CHAS

Offline DwightM

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Re: Voyager 2 soon to cross the termination shock
« Reply #5 on: 11/28/2007 09:11 pm »
Quote
GW_Simulations - 28/11/2007  12:21 PM

Out of interest, where are Pioneers 10 and 11?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_10

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_11


Offline Da5id

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Re: Voyager 2 soon to cross the termination shock
« Reply #6 on: 11/28/2007 10:04 pm »
This site shows current positions
http://www.heavens-above.com

Offline Pheogh

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Re: Voyager 2 soon to cross the termination shock
« Reply #7 on: 11/28/2007 10:14 pm »
Not sure if this would be possible or not but I was thinking that it might be cool to have voyager take a self portrait to celebrate 30 years. Something akin to what Rosetta did as it passed Mars. Not sure if the cameras can gimbal that way or not but it would sure make a nice postcard to send home, hey mom look I'm at the termination shock, nice long exposure with stars streaking in the background. And yes I do understand there is no scientific value to this. Does anyone know what state the cameras are in?

Offline jaredgalen

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Re: Voyager 2 soon to cross the termination shock
« Reply #8 on: 11/29/2007 08:30 am »
The power situation is such that many of the instruments and their heaters were switched off a good few years ago. The power needed to heat and then even try and move them again would not be manageable I'd say. I'd have my doubts that the camera has even survived this long.


Pity :)

Offline Hoonte

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Re: Voyager 2 soon to cross the termination shock
« Reply #9 on: 11/29/2007 11:01 am »

Latest update on the voyagers

Voyager Mission Operations Status Report # 2007-10-26,  Week Ending  October 26, 2007

Command Transmission & Verification Operations

Voyager 1 command operations consisted of the uplink of a command loss timer reset on 04/18 [DOY 108/2230z].  The spacecraft received the command.

Voyager 2 command operations consisted of the uplink of seven bracketed command loss timer resets sent on five-minute centers using 1.0 Hz steps on 10/20 [DOY 293/0022z].  The spacecraft received two of the seven commands sent.

Sequence Generation Operations

Start sequence development of abbreviated B138 mini-sequence due to the lack of DSN allocations.

Data Return Operations

Voyager 1 Data Processing and Operations:

There were 63.5 hours of DSN scheduled support for Voyager 1 of which 11.8 hours were large aperture coverage.  There were no real-time or schedule support changes made or significant outages during the period.

Science instrument performance was nominal for all activities during this period.  One frame of GS-4 data was recorded this week.  A second frame of GS-4 data was recorded on October 20.  98.2% of twenty-six frames of GS-4 data was recovered from a playback on October 24.  The EDR backlog is 1 days.

Voyager 2 Data Processing and Operations:

There were 40.4 hours of DSN scheduled support for Voyager 2 of which 7.3 hours were large aperture coverage. There was one schedule support change made on 10/24 [DOY 297] when 4.0 hours of DSS-34 support was replaced by 7.5 hours of DSS-43 coverage released by MSGR and SIRTIF to support a MAGROL maneuver.  The total actual support was 43.9 hours of which 14.8 hours were large aperture coverage.  There were no significant outages during the period. 

Science instrument performance was nominal for all activities during this period.  The EDR backlog is 2 day.

Flight System Performance

Voyager 1 performance was nominal during this report period.  Activities included X-Band high power and DTR playback of PWS data on 10/24 (DOY 297) and turning ON Gyros B&C and CCS timing test on 10/26 (DOY 299).

Voyager 2 performance was nominal during this report period.  Activities included X-Band high power and a MAGROL on 10/23 (DOY 297) followed by X-Band low power on 10/24 (DOY 297).

PROPELLANT/POWER CONSUMABLES STATUS AS OF THIS REPORT

Spacecraft

Consumption

One Week (Gm)

Propellant

Remaining (Kg)

Output

(Watts)

Margin

(Watts)

1

7.36

27.53

284.5

31

2

46.18*

29.22

285.9

33

                                                                *MAGROL 07-297/0500

RANGE, VELOCITY AND ROUND TRIP LIGHT TIME AS OF 10/26/2007

Voyager 1

Voyager 2

Distance from the Sun (Km)

15,608,000,000

12,590,00,000

Distance from the Sun (Mi)

9,699,000,000

7,823,000,000

Distance from the Earth (Km)

15,700,000,000

12,620,000,000

Distance from the Earth (Mi)

9,756,000,000

7,842,000,000

Total Distance Traveled Since Launch (Km)

19,346,000,000

18,325,000,000

Total Distance Traveled Since Launch (Mi)

12,021,000,000

11,387,000,000

Velocity Relative to Sun  (Km/sec)

17.118

15.553

Velocity Relative to Sun  (Mi/hr)

38,291

34,791

Velocity Relative to Earth  (Km/sec)

42.596

41.949

Velocity Relative to Earth  (Mi/hr)

95,284

93,838

Round Trip Light Time (hh:mm:ss)

29:05:00

23:23:12

 

Need to know more?

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/weekly-reports/index.htm

 

Drogues populaires www.viagrasansordonnancefr.com toxicose du medicament

Offline Justin Space

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Re: Voyager 2 soon to cross the termination shock
« Reply #10 on: 12/02/2007 08:28 am »
Quote
Da5id - 28/11/2007  5:04 PM

This site shows current positions
http://www.heavens-above.com

How about a direct link instead of just that? I'm interesting in 'seeing' position, as I don't have a clue what these boundary layers are ;)

Offline Da5id

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Offline jgoldader

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Re: Voyager 2 soon to cross the termination shock
« Reply #12 on: 12/02/2007 12:00 pm »
If you go to voyager.jpl.nasa.gov and look at the recent data for Voyager 2, it looks as if that paper might be a little late.  The spacecraft seems to have encountered radical changes in the environment starting in July of this year.

Jeff
Recovering astronomer

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