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General Discussion => Q&A Section => Topic started by: brettreds2k on 10/15/2009 09:03 pm

Title: Voyager 1 & 2
Post by: brettreds2k on 10/15/2009 09:03 pm
I know in 1997 Voyager 1 & 2 officially left the Solar System, But does NASA still recieve any contact from these 2 probes anymore or are they pretty much just floating with no transmissions now?
Title: Re: Voyager 1 & 2
Post by: hop on 10/15/2009 09:13 pm
This mission, like most NASA missions, has it's own website. See
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov particularly http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/spacecraftlife.html
Title: Re: Voyager 1 & 2
Post by: brettreds2k on 10/15/2009 09:23 pm
Wow very cool, I did not know they were still fully functional and expected to be until 2025.
Title: Re: Voyager 1 & 2
Post by: Antares on 10/16/2009 05:03 pm
I assume you saw the IBEX articles today.  Cool stuff.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/48456/title/Solar_systems_edge_surprises_astronomers
Title: Re: Voyager 1 & 2
Post by: MP99 on 11/16/2009 11:56 pm
I assume you saw the IBEX articles today.  Cool stuff.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/48456/title/Solar_systems_edge_surprises_astronomers


Interstellar contrail?  :o

cheers, Martin
Title: Re: Voyager 1 & 2
Post by: quickshot89 on 02/08/2010 09:28 am
Hello all

Im currently doing a University Assignment where my group has chosen Space communications, mainly deep space (anything over LEO, but ISS comms would be helpful), however thje universities database system sucks for this sort of search, and i know people on this forum are fantastic on this sort of info

could anyone help point me in the direction of information of the technologies used during the space race to communicate to the moon, and then information on communications with mars, and possibly the voyager probes

information usch as data rates, noise, cost etc will be very helpful

videos and pictures would be great too

thanks in advance, and sorry if this is in wrong section

-quick
Title: Re: Voyager 1 & 2
Post by: infocat13 on 02/08/2010 12:21 pm
try,

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/



this is however very deep space communications and science but this site has other deep space and navigation elsewhere on its site.

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?cat=9



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObvKVe5H8pc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObvKVe5H8pc)
Title: Re: Voyager 1 & 2
Post by: Jim on 02/08/2010 01:16 pm
http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn/pubs/index.html


http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4227/Uplink-Downlink.pdf
Title: Re: Voyager 1 & 2
Post by: Danderman on 04/25/2012 05:18 am
Hey, a Q&A just for Voyager?

So, here is the question:

Given the recent launches of dedicated planet finder satellites, using optics to detect planets around faraway suns, has there been an effort to use Voyager's optics to detect planets around the Sun, using the same process as the newer planet finders? In other words, to use Voyager as a control experiment for the planet finders to see how accurate they are......
Title: Re: Voyager 1 & 2
Post by: alexw on 04/25/2012 05:43 am
Hey, a Q&A just for Voyager?
So, here is the question:
Given the recent launches of dedicated planet finder satellites, using optics to detect planets around faraway suns, has there been an effort to use Voyager's optics to detect planets around the Sun, using the same process as the newer planet finders? In other words, to use Voyager as a control experiment for the planet finders to see how accurate they are......
    Voyagers's optical cameras surely weren't designed to occult the stellar disk, and probably have very poor contrast ratios.
        -Alex
Title: Re: Voyager 1 & 2
Post by: woods170 on 04/25/2012 06:24 am
Hey, a Q&A just for Voyager?

So, here is the question:

Given the recent launches of dedicated planet finder satellites, using optics to detect planets around faraway suns, has there been an effort to use Voyager's optics to detect planets around the Sun, using the same process as the newer planet finders? In other words, to use Voyager as a control experiment for the planet finders to see how accurate they are......

Not exactly what you mean, but it is loosely related....
Pale Blue Dot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot)

That was part of the Family Portrait (http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/photo_gallery/photogallery-solarsystem.html)
Title: Re: Voyager 1 & 2
Post by: ugordan on 04/25/2012 07:28 am
has there been an effort to use Voyager's optics to detect planets around the Sun, using the same process as the newer planet finders? In other words, to use Voyager as a control experiment for the planet finders to see how accurate they are......

Even back in their prime, the vidicons in the cameras had way, way too low S/N ratios, the data returned was 8 bit, spacecraft pointing stability was bad, etc. No way something like the transit method that Kepler uses could have been implemented. Not then and especially not now - the cameras were powered down in 1990 and have been freezing since. They are beyond reactivating now, both from a standpoint of power available as well as likely physical damage to the hardware.

The Deep Impact spacecraft, on the other hand, did carry out an experiment as part of the "EPOXI" mission extension, watching known transiting planets to see how well they could be characterized. The defective blurred mirror of the high resolution imager makes it actually more useful in collecting light as you can spread more photons over a large area and sum them, without saturating the pixels, resulting in better S/N in the end.