Voyager Enters Final Frontier Of Solar System Options

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

http://planetary.org/news/2005/voyager-upd...ation_0524.html

Voyager 1, the most distant human-made object in space, has crossed the termination shock, the last major threshold in the solar system, team members announced today at the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.

[mike]

I wouldn't complain if the increase in cosmic rays (or something else out there) was somehow recharging the power supply (employ a more scientific-sounding explanation if you like)..

[ljk4-1]

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

Voyager Mission Operations Status Report # 2005-11-11, Week Ending November 11, 2005

Command Transmission & Verification Operations

Voyager 1 command operations consisted of the uplink of a command loss timer reset on 11/08 [DOY 312/1625z]. The spacecraft received the command.

There were no Voyager 2 command operations due to the extended downtime of DSS-43.

Sequence Generation Operations

Continue sequence development of CCSL B131.

Data Return Operations

Voyager 1 Data Processing and Operations:

There were 83.2 hours of DSN scheduled support for Voyager 1 of which 28.1 hours were large aperture coverage. There was one schedule change made on 11/09 [DOY 313] when 3.5 hours of DSS-65 support was released to support MUSC. The total actual support for the period was 79.7 hours of which 28.1 hours were large aperture coverage. There were no 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 day 309. The EDR backlog is 9 days.

Voyager 2 Data Processing and Operations:

There were 54.5 hours of DSN scheduled support for Voyager 2 of which 0 hours were large aperture coverage. There was one schedule change made on 11/09 [DOY 313] when 2.5 hours of DSS-45 support was released to support MUSC. The total actual support for the period was 52.0 hours of which 0 hours were large aperture coverage.

There was one significant outage of 0.7 hours on 11/08 [DOY 312] due to a sub-reflector problem at DSS-45 [DR C104604].

Science instrument performance was nominal for all activities during this period. One frame of GS-4 data was recorded this week. The EDR backlog is 8 days.

Flight System Performance

Voyager 1 performance was nominal during this report period. Activities included a PMPCAL and switching to Band Low Power on 11/9 (DOY 313/314).

Voyager 2 performance was nominal during this report period.

PROPELLANT/POWER CONSUMABLES STATUS AS OF THIS REPORT

Spacecraft
Consumption

One Week (Gm)
Propellant

Remaining (Kg)
Output

(Watts)
Margin

(Watts)

1
50.34*
28.58
292.9
35

2
7.87
30.49
294.5
41


*MAGROL 05-308/21:45

RANGE, VELOCITY AND ROUND TRIP LIGHT TIME AS OF 11/11/2005

Voyager 1
Voyager 2

Distance from the Sun (Km)
14,558,000,000
11,671,000,000

Distance from the Sun (Mi)
9,046,000,000
7,252,000,000

Distance from the Earth (Km)
14,669,000,000
11,736,000,000

Distance from the Earth (Mi)
9,115,000,000
7,292,000,000

Total Distance Traveled Since Launch (Km)
17,312,000,000
16,308,000,000

Total Distance Traveled Since Launch (Mi)
10,757,000,000
10,134,000,000

Velocity Relative to Sun (Km/sec)
17.162
15.610

Velocity Relative to Sun (Mi/hr)
38,390
34,919

Velocity Relative to Earth (Km/sec)
40.552
41.500

Velocity Relative to Earth (Mi/hr)
90,711
92,832

Round Trip Light Time (hh:mm:ss)
27:10:20
21:44:54

[Rob Pinnegar]

Distance from the Sun (Mi)
9,046,000,000
7,252,000,000

Looks like Voyager 1 will pass 100 AU pretty soon. Not a scientifically important point, but significant in its own way.

[ljk4-1]

Voyager Mission Status 11/18/2005 and 11/25/2005:

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

Feature video in the main Voyager page:

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html

'Voyager enters the Heliosheath' by the Voyager Project Scientist, Dr. Ed Stone.

[ljk4-1]

COSMIC RAY MYSTERY SOLVED
-------------------------

When Voyager 1 finally crossed the "termination shock" at the edge of
interstellar space in December 2004, space physicists anticipated the
long-sought discovery of the source of anomalous cosmic rays. These cosmic
rays, among the most energetic particle radiation in the solar system, are
thought to be produced at the termination shock - the boundary at the edge
of the solar system where the million-mile-per-hour solar wind abruptly
slows. A mystery unfolded instead when Voyager data showed 20 years of
predictions to be wrong.

...

The paper, "An Explanation of the Voyager Paradox: Particle Acceleration at a
Blunt Termination Shock," is available in the February 17 issue of the Geophysical
Research Letters.

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0602/19voyager/