40 years ago the space probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched. In just 12 years, they flew near the four major planets of the solar system - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Both space probes operate continuously and send data back to Earth, although they are currently far beyond the orbit of Pluto.

Let's go back to 1965, when the competition to land on the moon was hot and NASA had the money and confidence to achieve the big dream.

At that moment, no one thought about Voyager, because everyone thought that space technology was not yet ready for travel of many billions of kilometers beyond the solar system.

But there was already money to hire young and promising mathematicians who were involved in science in a large research center California JPL, and two of this group of mathematicians created the basis for the development of Voyager.

Michael Minovich and Gary Flandro were tasked with exploring possible flight paths for space probes in the solar system. This was a study under the slogan "Timely Prudence" and was to continue until rocketry will not reach the required level of development.

Nobody expected any outstanding results, but these two young mathematicians established that in the period from 1976 to 1979 there was unique opportunity to launch a space probe into flight near four major planets without high fuel consumption. This was an opportunity that came once every 176 years. It was during these three years that the planets were positioned in such a way that it was possible to use the gravity of one planet to fly the probe further to the next planet.

Context

In what part of the solar system did Voyager 1 end up?

Voyager 1 discovered a strange area at the edge of the solar system

Humanity strives beyond the solar system

NASA did not miss this opportunity: plans were quickly developed for a large expedition to the solar system.

It was planned to send at least four space probes and in addition to explore distant Pluto. In 1976-77, it was planned to send two probes to Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto, and in 1979, two more probes to Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune.

But the American Congress, which learned that this project cost more than a billion dollars, did not like it. It was a lot of money at the time. Congress only wanted money for two space probes that would take advantage of the planets' favorable alignments to explore Jupiter and Saturn.

NASA is preparing for the "Great Walk"

NASA committed a small act of civil disobedience, which, however, has now been forgiven.

Voyager 1 did exactly that official plan, which was limited to visiting only Jupiter and Saturn, which made it possible to close range explore Jupiter's moon Io and large satellite Saturn Titan.

But this also meant that Voyager 1 was in an orbit from which it was impossible to fly further to Uranus and Neptune. Scientists had a secret idea to keep Voyager 2 in reserve. It received a slow track and therefore flew behind Voyager 1 all the time. While Voyager 1 completed its tasks, Voyager 2 was allowed to complete its original mission and fly to four major planets, that is, to take the “Great Walk,” as this expedition was later called.

This decision had a funny consequence: Voyager 2 was launched before Voyager 1. As a result, the fast Voyager 1 was the first to reach Jupiter and Saturn. And the slow Voyager 2 had to be content with second place, but got the opportunity to become the first probe to reach Uranus and Neptune.

Major oversight leads to extra work

Therefore, Voyager 2 was launched on August 20. And although it was a “slow” probe, it nevertheless reached a speed of 52 thousand km per hour, as a result of which it flew past the orbit of the Moon in less than 10 hours.

Two weeks later, the fast Voyager 1 was launched, and everyone now hoped for a smooth flight to Jupiter. But then a glitch occurred, as a result of which a significant number of engineers had to work overtime over the next 12 years.

The control center forgot to send a routine message to Voyager 2. When the Voyager 2 computer did not receive the expected message, its instructions stated that this could only happen if the on-board receiver malfunctioned. It was believed that the control center simply could not forget about this operation.

Voyager 2 obediently switched to a spare receiver, but it was not properly configured and could only receive signals in a very narrow frequency range of 96 hertz, and this created problems.

The control center naturally sent signals at a very specific frequency, but since Voyager was moving very quickly relative to the Earth, due to the Doppler effect, it received a signal at a different frequency. Therefore, the receiver was configured to receive signals in the 100,000 hertz range.

Voyager 2 was silent

The first reaction was to transfer Voyager 2 to the main receiver, but this receiver immediately broke down completely. As a result, NASA lost the ability to send commands to the space probe.

This turned out to be a much bigger problem than expected. The speed relative to the Earth was easy to calculate, but what was much worse was that even very minor changes probe temperatures of less than 0.3 degrees changed the frequency range of the receiver so much that contact with the Earth was interrupted. It was discovered that even when one instrument was turned on or one of the control engines was used, the temperature of the space probe varied.

Over the course of several years, NASA engineers developed a complete mathematical model Voyager, which could calculate the temperature of the probe to within one hundredth of a degree. The model was developed throughout the probe's flight to Neptune; communication with it was interrupted for several days.

Voyager sends first images to Earth

In March 1979, Voyager 1 reached Jupiter, and scientists were literally amazed by the fantastic photographs sent to the center: clouds and a red spot on Jupiter, the orange moon Io and white, all ice-covered Europa.

Scientists learned what "Instant Science" means when journalists at JPL immediately asked for clarification on photographs that had only arrived hours earlier and therefore had not been carefully analyzed by experts.

For many scientists accustomed to peaceful life and suddenly found themselves in large audience in front of dozens of journalists eager to get an answer, this became a real test.

Rainy weather over Australia causes problems

During the probe's flight over Australia, where a large tracking station is located, heavy rain caused problems. Voyager sent its data to Earth only at a wavelength of 3.6 cm, and radio waves of such short wavelengths had difficulty passing through rain clouds. Because of this, data was lost for several hours.

But unexpected event occurred only a few days later, when Voyager 1 was on its way from Jupiter to Saturn.

For reliable navigation, it was necessary to know Voyager's position accurately, and this had to be done, in particular, by photographing the moon Io along with the mass of stars in the background. Therefore, a long shutter speed was used, as a result of which Io looked like an illuminated white disk in the photograph.

The task of analyzing the photographs on the computer was carried out by a young member of the navigation team, Linda Morabito. She discovered that there was something resembling a cloud over Io. Io has no atmosphere, so no one expected there to be clouds several hundred kilometers above the surface.

Tidal forces and volcanic activity

It was immediately suspected that it was a volcanic eruption, but experts who could examine the photographs were on holiday over the weekend. Therefore, three whole days passed before NASA was able to reveal that the first active volcanoes outside the Earth had been discovered.

This news had special meaning for three American scientists. Just a week ago, they published an article in Science where they predicted the existence of volcanoes as a consequence of the powerful tidal forces of Jupiter and the neighboring moons Europa and Ganymede acting on Io.

Four months later, Voyager 2 approached Jupiter. Now scientists were ready to monitor the volcanoes on Io and take a closer look at Europa's intact icy surface. Today it is believed that this icy surface hides a sea, which can be up to 100 km deep and in which life can exist.

And thanks to Voyager measurements, we now know that tidal forces cause hard surface Io moves up and down with a height difference of up to 100 meters. It is therefore not surprising that the heat resulting from this leads to intense volcanic activity.

Voyager 1 flies close to Titan

It was a quiet time before Voyager 1's approach to Saturn in November 1980. Scientists could again just sit and admire fantastic photos rings of Saturn. However, the greatest expectations were associated with the flight near Titan. This flight past Titan ruled out the possibility for Voyager 1 to continue its flight to Uranus and Neptune.

But the only thing that could be seen was a completely impenetrable orange cloud cover. However, the composition of the atmosphere has been studied, which mainly consists of carbon dioxide With a small amount methane Surface pressure was 1.6 times stronger than on Earth.

Measurements have shown that in the orange haze around Titan there are large quantities organic molecules when the sun's light impacts the methane. This means that Titan, in any case, receives many molecules that are a prerequisite for the emergence of life. Unfortunately, the measurements showed a temperature of minus 180 degrees. This is a little cold for life, but it is a temperature that gives a good chance of finding methane on the surface of the sea.

It would still take 30 years before the Cassini space probe, using radar, was able to see famous seas methane in the northern and south poles Titan.

Voyager 2 encounters problems again

Voyager 2 flew to Saturn in August 1981, and at first everything went well despite problems with the receiver. He photographed the small satellite Enceladus, on which, as we know today, huge geysers burst out of cracks on the ice-covered surface, and took photographs ice satellite Hyperion, which is very similar to a washing sponge.

But then problems began. The rotating platform with scientific instruments jammed, and a lot of data was lost. Once again, engineers had to work extra hours, but the situation continued to get worse because NASA had 108 employees instead of 200 due to staff cuts.

Big workload led to physical and mental fatigue for many employees.

But the problems were identified; they were related to the gearbox that controls the turntable. The problem was lubrication. When the platform turned quickly, the grease flew off the gears in zero gravity, which meant that the metal parts were touching each other. Small metal shavings appeared and came off, blocking movement. The problem could have been avoided by turning the platform slowly.

Flight to Uranus

Fortunately, there was plenty of time to solve this problem, because Voyager 2 had to fly from Saturn to Uranus for almost five years. Nevertheless it was difficult time, because, as already mentioned, the flight to Uranus was not entirely calm.

Three large tracking stations in California, Spain, and Australia had to be upgraded so that they could receive the extremely important signals from Voyager's small transmitter, which had only 20 watts of power. One way is using electronic devices connect large 64 meter dish antennas to smaller 34 meter antennas so that they can function as one large dish.

Another problem was the high speed at which Voyager 2 flew past Uranus. The photos turned out very blurry because sunlight in the region of Uranus is so weak that it is necessary to hold the frame for a long time. All this led to ingenious solutions - in addition to what was done with the turntable (Eventually, instead of turning just the platform, for fear that it would jam again, they turned the entire space probe).

Accident when meeting Uranus

When Voyager 2 approached Uranus in January 1986, the only thing that could be seen was a large bluish-green ball with no visible signs of clouds. What Voyager saw appeared to be a layer of haze in a deep atmosphere composed of light hydrogen and helium with small amounts of methane and other carbohydrates.

But Voyager's flight was remembered for something else.

On January 28, 1986, NASA was supposed to present the first photographs of the small moons of Uranus - in particular, Miranda, which, as it turned out, has sheer icy cliffs almost 10 kilometers high. But the press conference never took place because other images appeared on the audience's television screens. There was an explosion shown space shuttle Challenger, which killed seven astronauts.

Over and over again they showed the white cloud of steam from the explosion and two auxiliary rocket engine, scattered in different directions. After that, no one wanted to participate in the press conference on Uranus. So Voyager 2 quietly left Uranus and began its three-year journey to Neptune.

Farewell and a new beginning

In August 1989, Voyager 2 flew to Neptune, the final target of the Great Walk, which Congress never authorized.

This time it was about a real celebration of spacecraft in Pasadena, where JPL is located. Thousands of people took part in it and were rewarded interesting photos beautiful blue Neptune with white clouds, which were driven by the storm at a speed of 2,000 km per hour.

It still remains a mystery how a planet on such long distance from the Sun and with a very low temperature - minus 215 degrees = could have enough energy to create such powerful storms.

Soon it was time to say goodbye to Voyager 2. and this farewell was photographs of the large icy satellite Triton, which surprised by the presence of geysers. At least 50 sites were found with long, dark traces of some form of eruption.

Some photographs show that the geysers reach heights of 8 kilometers, where they meet some kind of jet stream in a very thin atmosphere. It stretches the sheer geysers, turning them into long streaks of smoke. It is believed that geysers are so dark because they are not only made of steam, but also contain dust and organic matter.

The flight has just begun

The flight past Neptune was the end of the "Great Walk", a journey that can rightfully be compared to the landings on the Moon. But this was not a farewell to the Solar System, which neither Voyager 1 nor Voyager 2 had yet left.

To mark the completion, a farewell photograph of all the planets in the solar system was taken in 1990. On them the Earth is visible as a small “light blue dot" This photograph of our Earth from a distance of 6 billion km has become a kind of symbol showing how little space we actually occupy in the universe.

Both Voyager probes are now far from the orbit of Pluto and from the Kuiper Belt, which consists of small icy planets. But they still have to travel thousands of years before they reach the last outpost of our solar system, namely the Oort Cloud, which is considered the birthplace of many comets.

Voyager 1 set a record by traveling a distance of 141 astronomical units from the Sun (one astronomical unit is the distance from the Earth to the Sun).

The slow Voyager 2 traveled only 116 AU. Both probes constantly send data back to Earth, which now mainly concerns the solar wind and the Sun's magnetic field.

Scientists hope to maintain contact with both old space probes until 2025. These two probes are almost eternal representatives of humanity, although they are unlikely to be found by any other civilization.

Message from earthlings

Both Voyagers carry with them a message from earthlings, written on a 30-centimeter gold-plated plate mounted on board them.

The message was developed by a commission led by the famous astronomer and astrobiologist Carl Sagan (Carl Sagan, 1934 - 1996). Since the likelihood that these probes will ever be found is infinitesimal, we can take this message as a message to ourselves.

It includes both pictures and sounds, which are placed on the plate in encrypted form. This is a series of pictures describing how the contents of the plate can be reproduced. Playback should run at 16 2/3 revolutions per minute using the stylus that comes with the plate. It's old-fashioned, but technically sound if recipients can figure out a series of drawings.

InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively from foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.

Events

Launched 36 years ago, twin unmanned spacecraft Voyager 1 And "Voyager 2" were the first to follow an incredible path past all the planets, sending them on their way to Earth lots of useful information.

First Voyager managed to fly through the entire system already by 1980 and since then has been on its way to interstellar space. Today this object is at a distance from us 120 times greater than the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

Unexpected turn of events

Initially, scientists believed that the transition "Voyager" V new reality, where the influence of the entire galaxy is more noticeable, will be implemented gradually and will not be particularly interesting. However, it turns out that this transition has become much more complex than the researchers suspected. Now the device has found itself in a strange area, for which scientists are finding it difficult to find an explanation. All the models that predicted what would happen in this area turned out to be wrong.

Solar wind and cosmic rays

The sun produces a stream of charged particles called the solar wind. This wind blows at a speed more than 1 million kilometers per hour. The particles carry with them the solar magnetic field.

Eventually the solar wind collides with interstellar medium- a completely different flow of particles that appeared as a result of explosions massive stars . The super intense ions that were released as a result of explosions are known as galactic cosmic rays .

solar wind blocks cosmic rays from entering the solar system. The galaxy, in turn, has its own magnetic field, which is assumed to be located at a significant angle to the solar field.

It is known that Voyager 1 got to the border cosmic wind more in 2003. The device's instruments showed that the particles around it move at subsonic speeds, that is, their movement slows down as they move away from the Sun.

About a year ago, everything around the device became calm. Equipment Voyager 1 showed decrease in solar wind speed a thousand times. This figure turned out to be so significant that it became clear that the solar wind has completely died down. Interestingly, the device’s transition to this area was incredibly fast and took only a couple of days.

At the same time galactic cosmic rays have increased significantly. Scientists believe that this means only one thing: Voyager 1 got out of the control of the Sun.

Strange place

There is one strange thing about this situation: if the solar wind has completely disappeared, galactic cosmic rays should "rain" from all directions. However Voyager 1 recorded that rays come from only one direction.

Moreover, although the solar particles have disappeared, the device does not detected any changes in the magnetic field around you. This is quite difficult to explain, since it is assumed that the galaxy's magnetic field is inclined by 60 degrees relative to magnetic field Sun. None of the astrophysicists can yet understand exactly what is happening.

It seems that Voyager 1 is about to leave his sunny home, but instead stands in the "foyer" with open door, in which the wind blows from the galaxy. Scientists had no idea that such a “foyer” existed, and they also have no idea how long the apparatus will remain in it.

It may take several months or years before Voyager 1 will reach interstellar space. So far, scientists do not have models to determine this.

For now we can say that Voyager 1 did not completely leave the solar system, however, he left the area of ​​influence of the solar wind. What will happen to the device next is anyone's guess.

Interesting facts about the Voyager spacecraft

1) Spacecraft Voyager 1 And "Voyager 2"- twins, that is, they absolutely unique in design. Each one weighs approx. 680 kilograms. The devices are equipped with useful tools for various studies, including instruments for photographing and measuring plasma concentrations.

2) Some of 65 thousand device components seem ridiculous today, but in the late 1970s were considered advanced technologies, e.g. digital multi-track tape recorder.

3) "Voyagers" were designed for a period of about 5 years, but in fact they turned out to be functional for over 30 years.

4) Voyager 1 was actually launched in 16 days after "Voyager 2". It happened September 5, 1977. The fact is that once every 175 years the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune have such an arrangement relative to each other that allows the device, flying past, to catch and use them gravitational fields to cover long distances with ease.

The devices were launched with different trajectory. One of the devices managed to visit all four planets, and the other Voyager 1 visited Jupiter and Saturn before heading into deep space.

Voyager 1 caught up "Voyager 2" in the area of ​​the asteroid belt and took a leading position during the mission, as planned.

5) NASA engineers had to consider more than 10 thousand possible trajectories for the mission "Voyagers".

6) Currently required 16 hours and 38 minutes to receive a signal from Voyager 1. The device is located at a distance of about 12 billion kilometers from Earth

NASA Deep Space Network radio telescope (California, USA), which receives signals from Voyager 1

7) In February 1990 when the planets are behind you Voyager 1, the researchers signaled the device to turn on its cameras and film what was left behind. Thus, with the help of 60 photographs taken by the device, it was possible to obtain "family portrait"Solar system.

8) Both devices contain messages to alien life forms from earthlings in the form of gilded copper disks. These disks contain information prepared for NASA by an astronomer Carl Sagan. Here you can find images, recordings of nature sounds, greetings in 55 languages ​​and musical compositions different cultures and times.

On September 5, 1977, the Voyager 1 interplanetary station was launched, the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space. Although its mission was supposed to last no more than five years, the probe is still operating and transmitting valuable information to Earth. Over the past time, the device has managed to move away from the surface of our planet to a distance of 139.6 astronomical units. This year we celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the launch of Voyager 1 and talk about the history of the project.

The idea of ​​the Voyager project was put forward by the NASA aerospace agency in the late 60s. IN 1976 A rare event for the solar system was about to happen - once every 177 years, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune find themselves on the same side of our star for three years, so that from Earth they are visible in a small area of ​​the sky. NASA engineers decided to use this phenomenon to launch two research stations- the favorable location of the planets allowed the probes to perform gravitational maneuvers and save fuel.

In 1977, Voyager 1 and its equally famous twin, Voyager 2, set off to explore then-little-explored worlds. Despite the number in the name, Voyager 2 was the first ship to be launched into space. The fact is that the probes were supposed to fly around the giant planets with different sides to collect as much information about them as possible. Voyager 2 flew along a so-called slow trajectory and was supposed to approach all four planets, while Voyager 1 explored only Jupiter and Saturn and its path was noticeably shorter. Since scientists knew from the very beginning that the probe launched later would reach the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter earlier than its twin brother, they named it accordingly.

Before sending the Voyagers to outer space, NASA engineers considered more than 10 thousand possible flight trajectories, after which they chose only one (and, as it turned out, a successful one). However, even after such detailed preparation, many were not confident that the mission would be a success. Almost immediately after launch, Voyager 2 experienced technical problems, so engineers were in no hurry to send the second device into space. Voyager 1 was originally scheduled to launch on September 1, but was postponed twice. Despite the fact that NASA considers the probe’s flight “precise and flawless,” the memories of mission participants say otherwise. According to John Casani, the program's director, just after liftoff, he and Charles Colaise, Voyager's mission advisor and navigation expert, were in the control room at the Cape Canaveral launch center when they received poor readings from the Titan IIIE launch vehicle. Centaurus"). It seemed that Voyager 1 would not reach its goal. “I was scared. We were scared,” said Kasani. Colais turned to Kasani, who was sitting next to him: “John, we may fail. We don't have enough speed."

Titan's second stage fuel line developed a tiny, initially undetected leak that caused major problems during launch. Even if Voyager 1 reached the limits of low-Earth orbit, it might not be fast enough to successfully reach its destination. next goal- Jupiter.

However, the launch vehicle had a supply of fuel that could save the situation. The main danger was that empty fuel pumps could explode and damage Voyager 1 if the fuel were completely used up. However, Titan Centauri delivered the probe into orbit three seconds before it ran out of fuel, saving the mission.

Voyager 2

Voyager 2 launched from Cape Canaveral on August 20, 1977. The trajectory of its flight made it possible to explore not only Jupiter and Saturn and their satellites, but also two other gas giants - Uranus and Neptune.

Voyager 2 became the first and only spacecraft to study all four outer planets of the solar system at close range. In addition, the probe photographed Ganymede and Europa, the Galilean moons of Jupiter - thanks to these images, scientists first hypothesized the existence of a liquid ocean beyond the Earth.

Voyager 2 also took images of Saturn's rings and the surface of its moons, thousands of images of Uranus, its moons and rings, and unique photos Neptune. Now its mission, like that of Voyager 1, continues - the device is moving further and further away from us and is now exploring interstellar space.

By the way, initially the Voyagers were supposed to become part of the Mariner program, which was studying inner planets, and be named Mariner 11 and Mariner 12, but mission leaders ultimately abandoned the idea. Later they wanted to give Voyager 1 the name Mariner-Jupiter-Saturn 77, or MJS-77. “I said, ‘Who cares about the start year of the mission anyway? We need a beautiful, catchy name,” says Kasani. - We held a competition. The main prize for the winner was a box of champagne.” This is how the name Voyager came about.

Since the program from the very beginning implied the exploration of distant planets, scientists could not install on Voyagers solar panels- As you move away from the Sun, the intensity of its radiation decreases noticeably. For example, near the orbit of Neptune it is about 900 times less than that of the shaved Earth. Therefore, the sources of electricity in each of the probes are three radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) - they use plutonium-238 as fuel. At the time of launch, their power was approximately 470 watts; Since plutonium-238 has a half-life of 87.74 years, generators using it lose 0.78 percent of their power per year. As of September 3, 2017, Voyager 1 had 72.9 percent of its fuel reserves remaining. By 2050, capacity will be reduced to 56.5 percent.

A joint image of the Earth and the Moon taken from Voyager 1

A system of two television cameras is installed on board the spacecraft - wide-angle and narrow-angle. The resolution of a narrow-angle camera is enough to read a newspaper headline at a distance of one kilometer. It is thanks to this system spacecraft managed to obtain unique images of the solar system. For example, two weeks after launch, Voyager 1 took the first ever joint portrait of the Earth and its moon.

In March 1979, the probe reached the outskirts of Jupiter. He photographed the famous Great Red Spot, the largest atmospheric vortex in the solar system, and also discovered volcanic activity on Io, one of the Galilean moons gas giant. This was the first time that scientists were able to see active volcanoes somewhere beyond the Earth. In addition, Voyager 1 made another remarkable discovery - it saw the rings of Jupiter for the first time. Before this, it was believed that only Saturn and Uranus had a ring system.

Active volcano on Io, a moon of Jupiter, in an image taken by Voyager 1

Voyager 1's next stop was Saturn with its famous system of rings and moons. The closest approach between the spacecraft and the planet occurred on November 12, 1980 - then the probe approached the upper layer of clouds at 64.2 thousand kilometers. He sent back to Earth the first high-quality images of rings made of fragments of ice, comets and dust, and also photographed some of Saturn's moons. The spacecraft discovered that the Cassini gap, first noticed in the 17th century, is also a kind of rarefied ring of ice and dust particles. At the same time, a thin and dim E ring was discovered. In addition, infrared and ultraviolet spectrometers installed on board Voyager 1 determined that the planet’s atmosphere consists almost entirely of hydrogen with helium impurities.

The main mission of the device ended with the study of Saturn and Jupiter, but it continued its space odyssey. In February 1990, Voyager 1 pointed its cameras at our planet and took a series of portraits of the solar system. At the same time, the famous Pale Blue Dot image was taken: it captured the Earth from a distance of 5.9 billion kilometers. The photo gets its name because our planet looks like a tiny blue dot in it; it occupies only 0.12 pixels in the image.

"Pale Blue Dot" from Voyager 1

Subsequently, the American astrophysicist and popularizer of science Carl Sagan wrote about this image in his book: “Take another look at this point. It's here. This is our home. This is us. Everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you've ever heard of, every person who has ever existed lived their lives on it.<...>every mother and every father, every capable child", inventor and traveler, every ethics teacher, every deceitful politician, every 'superstar', every 'greatest leader', every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived here - on a speck suspended in a ray of sunshine."

In February 1998, Voyager 1 overtook Pioneer 10 to become the most distant human-made object from us. Today, the probe is 139.6 astronomical units from Earth (or about 21 billion kilometers - or, to use another unit of measurement immortalized by Jules Verne in his novel, almost 3.76 billion nautical leagues) and continues to move towards the outer limits of the solar system at a speed of 16.9 kilometers per second. On board is a message to alien civilizations - one of the two gold records of Voyager. Carl Sagan and astronomer Francis Drake participated in its creation, who figured out how to use recording technology to engrave not only sounds and music, but also images on a record.

Both Voyagers carry one such golden plate with a message to other civilizations.

The message is a copper disc with gold plating, which is packaged in an aluminum case. It records all the most important information about our planet - its types, location relative to 14 powerful pulsars, the composition of the atmosphere, known life forms, the DNA molecule and the sounds of nature. The gold records also tell stories about us humans. If alien civilizations ever decipher the message, they will be able to learn about human anatomy, hear the cry of a child and the whisper of a mother, get acquainted with the music of Bach and Mozart and receive greetings in 55 languages, including Russian. Even when Voyager 1's engines stop working (this will happen in 2030), the golden records will float slowly through space, intact, for at least a billion years.

In December 2004, the Plasma Facility, another scientific instrument aboard Voyager 1, showed that the probe had crossed the heliospheric shock wave, the surface within the heliosphere at which the solar wind abruptly slows to sound speeds(relative to the speed of the Sun itself). This occurs due to the fact that a stream of charged particles “impinges” on interstellar matter, so shock wave considered one of the boundaries of the solar system. The distance to the star at that time was 94 astronomical units.

The blue line in the blue zone on the graph shows how the density of charged particles should theoretically change at different distances from the Sun. Now the probe is in the blue zone, the graph also shows the moment of intersection of the heliospheric shock wave.

In December 2011, Voyager 1 moved to a distance of 119 astronomical units and reached the so-called stagnation region - the last frontier, separating the probe from interstellar space. This region experiences a strong magnetic field because the pressure of charged particles from outer space causes the field created by the Sun to become denser. There is also an increase in the number of high-energy electrons (about 100 times) that arrive from the interstellar medium, so this region is also considered one of the boundaries of the Solar system.

In the first half of 2012, Voyager 1 reached the boundaries of interstellar space. The device's sensors recorded an increase in the level of galactic rays by 25 percent - this meant that the probe was approaching the boundary of the heliosphere. On September 12, 2013, NASA confirmed that Voyager 1 had left the heliosphere and was now in interstellar space. However, the device is still far from the hypothetical Oort cloud, the limit of the gravitational influence of the Sun.

All Voyager 1 scientific instruments will be turned off by 2025, after which only data on its technical condition will be received from the probe. Today the signal is from space station It takes 17 hours and 20 minutes to reach Earth. In the future, the mission program plans for another approach to a large celestial body - however, it will not happen soon, only after 40 thousand years. The spacecraft will fly within 1.6 light years (15 trillion kilometers) of the star AC+79 3888 in the constellation Giraffe; however, by that time we will no longer be able to receive any data from Voyager 1. After this, the probe will continue to wander through the Milky Way, moving further and further away from its home - Earth. It is collected by the New Horizons interplanetary station, launched by NASA in 2006.

Now this probe, like the Voyagers, is moving towards interstellar space, but is much closer to the Sun - at a distance of 39 astronomical units - and flies much slower, despite more high speed launch. This is due to the fact that Voyager 1 managed to gain extra speed due to the gravitational maneuver of Jupiter. In addition, New Horizons's engines are less powerful than those of the Voyagers, so it will not be able to break the twin probes' range record when the spacecraft ceases operations in the 2020s. total length its path will be 50–55 astronomical units.

Kristina Ulasovich

36 years ago, the Voyager 2 spacecraft was launched into space. And although in recent years its faster-flying twin brother, Voyager 1, has become much more popular (as is the debate about whether it has gone beyond the solar system or not), we should not forget that Voyager 2 still holds a unique achievement - not a single spacecraft, either before or after it, has been able to study four planets of the solar system in one go. Moreover, if other devices were later launched to Saturn and Jupiter, then Uranus and Neptune have not been visited since then. So it is unknown how many more decades we will have to be content with the information that Voyager 2 transmitted.

Concept

One of the authors and permanent director of the Voyager program, Professor Ed Stone. Interestingly, most of the current project participants were born later than the devices themselves were launched.

The original plan was to send four spaceship- but due to significant NASA budget cuts in the early 70s, money was allocated only for two probes that were supposed to study Jupiter and Saturn. Fortunately, the creators of the device were able to achieve a flight plan that included the possibility of extending the Voyager 2 mission to study Uranus and Neptune. This required that Voyager 1 fully complete all of its assigned tasks. Fortunately, Voyager 1 performed flawlessly.

Start

In accordance with the practice of those years, a total of three devices were built with tail numbers VGR 77-1, VGR 77-2 and VGR 77-3. The latter was a backup, in case problems were detected on one of the main devices. This practice fully justified itself when problems arose during tests of the device with the number VGR 77-2 - and therefore it had to be replaced by VGR 77-3, which was launched on August 20, 1977 and is now known as Voyager 2.

Two weeks later, on September 5, 1977, Voyager 1 launched. It may seem strange to some that the device with number 2 starts earlier than number 1 - but the first Voyager followed a faster and more economical trajectory, and therefore soon overtook its “brother”. VGR 77-2 remained on Earth and now engineers are working out all the commands on it before transmitting them directly to the devices themselves.

Jupiter

From left to right and top to bottom: Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto

Io against the background of Jupiter

Saturn

Enceladus and Iapetus

The photo on the right shows a fragment of Saturn's rings. The photo on the left is a farewell photo of Voyager 1, which left our system forever.

Uranus

In January 1985, Voyager 2 flew near Uranus, transmitting thousands of images of the planet, its moons and rings to Earth. Thanks to these photographs, scientists discovered 10 new satellites, two new rings and examined nine already known ones.

Rings of Uranus

Uranus itself turned out to be quite inexpressive in photographs in the visible spectrum, but photographs of its satellites, in particular Miranda, surprised researchers.

From left to right: Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon

Previously, it was believed that small satellites cooled quickly after their formation, and represented a monotonous desert dotted with craters. However, it turned out that on the surface of Miranda there are valleys and mountain ranges, among which rocky cliffs were noticeable. This suggests that the history of the moon is rich in tectonic and thermal phenomena.

In the photo on the left is Titania. On the right is Miranda.

"Fascend" photo of Uranus

Neptune

Beautiful photographs of Neptune and its unique traveler Triton were obtained. Cryovolcanism was discovered on Triton, which came as a big surprise to all participants in the project.

Voyager 2 leaves Neptune and Triton. One of the last photographs taken by the device

Technical problems and their solutions

Since Voyager 2's flight lasted much longer than planned, the scientists accompanying the mission had to decide huge amount technical problems. The initially correct approaches to the design of devices made it possible to do this. The most significant and successfully resolved problems include:

*Failure of the radio transmitter signal frequency compensator. This device was supposed to adjust the carrier frequency of the radio transmitter due to the fact that it, when moving at a speed of about 11.5 km/s, experiences a significant Doppler shift. The problem was solved by creating, in the shortest possible time, an earthly analogue of this device, but for a ground-based receiving complex, which is still operating. Without it, communication with the device would be impossible.

*Failure of one of the cells RAM on-board computer - the program was rewritten and loaded so that this bit ceased to affect it.

*At a certain part of the flight, the used control signal coding system no longer met the requirements for sufficient noise immunity due to deterioration in the signal-to-noise ratio. The on-board computer was loaded new program, which carried out encoding with a much more secure code (a double Reed-Solomon code was used). The most interesting thing is that in 1977 this encoding method did not yet exist.

*In 2010, after receiving a garbled message from the probe, the team did a thorough memory dump using one of the backup computers and found that one bit in the program had changed from 0 to 1. Rebooting the program fixed everything.

*When flying over the plane of Saturn’s rings, the onboard rotating platform with television cameras was jammed, possibly by a particle of these rings. Careful attempts to turn it several times opposite sides allowed, in the end, to unblock the platform.

*The drop in the power of the isotope supply elements required the compilation of complex cyclograms of the operation of on-board equipment, some of which began to be turned off from time to time in order to provide the other part with enough electricity.

*The enormous distance of the device from the Earth required repeated modernization of the ground-based receiving and transmitting complex in order to receive the weakening signal.

PlanetX

The data obtained by Voyager 2 allowed scientists to put an end to almost a century-long debate about the existence of the so-called. Planet X - hypothetical celestial body, which has an inexplicable effect on the orbit of Uranus. The search for this body at one time led to the discovery of Pluto - but when it turned out that its mass was only 0.002% of the Earth’s, it became clear that it could not cause such deviations.

The end to this story was put in 1994, when, based on the results of updating the mass of Neptune, carried out on the basis of an analysis of data obtained by Voyager 2, it turned out that it was 0.5% less than the calculated one (the difference was comparable to the mass of Mars). As a result, the discrepancies in the orbit of Uranus disappeared, and with them the need for Planet X.

Present and future

Currently, Voyager 2 is located at a distance of 102 AU. from the Sun and continues to move away from it by another 3.2 AU. per year (for comparison, Voyager 1 is at a distance of 125 AU from the Sun). Data obtained from the probe suggest that the heliosphere (the “bubble” within which the Sun, its magnetic field and the solar wind dominates) interstellar medium), has a bulge directed outward (in the northern hemisphere of our system) and a depression directed inward (in the southern hemisphere).

36 years ago, the Voyager 2 spacecraft was launched into space. And although in recent years its faster-flying twin brother Voyager 1 has been much more widely known (what is the debate about), we should not forget that Voyager 2 still holds a unique achievement - no other the spacecraft, neither before nor after it, was able to study the four planets of the solar system in one go. Moreover, if other devices were later launched to Saturn and Jupiter, then Uranus and Neptune have not been visited since then. So it is unknown how many more decades we will have to be content with the information that Voyager 2 transmitted.

Concept

One of the authors and permanent director of the Voyager program, Professor Ed Stone. Interestingly, most of the current project participants were born later than the devices themselves were launched.

The original plan was to send four spacecraft into space - but due to significant NASA budget cuts in the early 70s, money was allocated only for two probes, which were supposed to study Jupiter and Saturn. Fortunately, the creators of the device were able to achieve a flight plan that included the possibility of extending the Voyager 2 mission to study Uranus and Neptune. This required that Voyager 1 fully complete all of its assigned tasks. Fortunately, Voyager 1 performed flawlessly.

Start

In accordance with the practice of those years, a total of three devices were built with tail numbers VGR 77-1, VGR 77-2 and VGR 77-3. The latter was a backup, in case problems were detected on one of the main devices. This practice fully justified itself when problems arose during tests of the device with the number VGR 77-2 - and therefore it had to be replaced by VGR 77-3, which was launched on August 20, 1977 and is now known as Voyager 2.

Two weeks later, on September 5, 1977, Voyager 1 launched. It may seem strange to some that the device with number 2 starts earlier than number 1 - but the first Voyager followed a faster and more economical trajectory, and therefore soon overtook its “brother”. VGR 77-2 remained on Earth and now engineers are working out all the commands on it before transmitting them directly to the devices themselves.

Jupiter

From left to right and top to bottom: Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto

Io against the background of Jupiter

Saturn

Enceladus and Iapetus

The photo on the right shows a fragment of Saturn's rings. The photo on the left is a farewell photo of Voyager 1, which left our system forever.

Uranus

In January 1985, Voyager 2 flew near Uranus, transmitting thousands of images of the planet, its moons and rings to Earth. Thanks to these photographs, scientists discovered 10 new satellites, two new rings and examined nine already known ones.

Rings of Uranus

Uranus itself turned out to be quite inexpressive in photographs in the visible spectrum, but photographs of its satellites, in particular Miranda, surprised researchers.

From left to right: Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon

Previously, it was believed that small satellites cooled quickly after their formation, and represented a monotonous desert dotted with craters. However, it turned out that on the surface of Miranda there were valleys and mountain ranges, among which rocky cliffs were noticeable. This suggests that the history of the moon is rich in tectonic and thermal phenomena.

In the photo on the left is Titania. On the right is Miranda.

"Fascend" photo of Uranus

Neptune

Beautiful photographs of Neptune and its unique traveler Triton were obtained. Cryovolcanism was discovered on Triton, which came as a big surprise to all participants in the project.

Voyager 2 leaves Neptune and Triton. One of the last photographs taken by the device

Technical problems and their solutions

Because Voyager 2's flight lasted much longer than planned, the scientists accompanying the mission had to solve a huge number of technical problems. The initially correct approaches to the design of devices made it possible to do this. The most significant and successfully resolved problems include:

*Failure of the radio transmitter signal frequency compensator. This device was supposed to adjust the carrier frequency of the radio transmitter due to the fact that it, when moving at a speed of about 11.5 km/s, experiences a significant Doppler shift. The problem was solved by creating, in the shortest possible time, an earthly analogue of this device, but for a ground-based receiving complex, which is still operating. Without it, communication with the device would be impossible.

*Failure of one of the RAM cells of the on-board computer - the program was rewritten and loaded so that this bit ceased to affect it.

*At a certain part of the flight, the used control signal coding system no longer met the requirements for sufficient noise immunity due to deterioration in the signal-to-noise ratio. A new program was loaded into the on-board computer, which carried out encoding with a much more secure code (a double Reed-Solomon code was used). The most interesting thing is that in 1977 this encoding method did not yet exist.

*In 2010, after receiving a garbled message from the probe, the team did a thorough memory dump using one of the backup computers and found that one bit in the program had changed from 0 to 1. Rebooting the program fixed everything.

*When flying over the plane of Saturn’s rings, the onboard rotating platform with television cameras was jammed, possibly by a particle of these rings. Careful attempts to turn it several times in opposite directions finally allowed the platform to be unlocked.

*The drop in the power of the isotope supply elements required the compilation of complex cyclograms of the operation of on-board equipment, some of which began to be turned off from time to time in order to provide the other part with enough electricity.

*The enormous distance of the device from the Earth required repeated modernization of the ground-based receiving and transmitting complex in order to receive the weakening signal.

PlanetX

The data obtained by Voyager 2 allowed scientists to put an end to almost a century-long debate about the existence of the so-called. Planet X is a hypothetical celestial body that has an inexplicable influence on the orbit of Uranus. The search for this body at one time led to the discovery of Pluto - but when it turned out that its mass was only 0.002% of the Earth’s, it became clear that it could not cause such deviations.

The end to this story was put in 1994, when, based on the results of updating the mass of Neptune, carried out on the basis of an analysis of data obtained by Voyager 2, it turned out that it was 0.5% less than the calculated one (the difference was comparable to the mass of Mars). As a result, the discrepancies in the orbit of Uranus disappeared, and with them the need for Planet X.

Present and future

Currently, Voyager 2 is located at a distance of 102 AU. from the Sun and continues to move away from it by another 3.2 AU. per year (for comparison, Voyager 1 is at a distance of 125 AU from the Sun). Data obtained from the probe suggest that the heliosphere (the “bubble” within which the Sun, its magnetic field and the solar wind dominate the interstellar medium) has a bulge directed outward (in the northern hemisphere of our system) and a depression directed inward (in southern hemisphere).