Some questions on the basic hardware of the Voyager spacecraft:
1. From which material was the decahedral space bus made ( Aluminium ? )
2. Exact weight of the spacecraft - literature gives numbers between 792 and 825 kilograms ?
Some additional questions:
1. The Deep Space Network of worldwide antenna sites wasn't sufficient to collect the faint signal of the distant spacecraft once beyond Saturn ... I know that the twenty-seven 25-meter steerable radio antennes of the Very Large Array in New Mexico were linked with DSN ... when was this done exactly?
( 1989 Neptune encounter only ? )
2. What is the actual telecommunications time-lag 1-way to Earth (after having passed the bow-shock )
As far as telecoms delay is concerned, http://www.heavens-above.com site says one-way light time for Voyager 1 is currently 13.66 hrs and Voyager 2 10.99 hrs.
Check out the Voyager Neptune Travel Guide, much more than a press kit:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19900004096_1990004096.pdf
and the current status reports:
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/weekly-reports/index.htm
Also interesting if you have read the Travel Guide and know what DTR, PWS or CCS means:
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/soe-sfos/tracking_schedule.html
Have fun!
Analyst
Thanks, are there any High-resolution Voyager spacecraft images online (BOth NASA-JPL and NASA-KSC only post normal resolution artist impressions of the Voyager hardware )
I only have the NASA-JPL artist impression P-23836A showing Voyager 2 near Uranus, but scanning from a glossy litho doesn't give good results
[quote=PhilCo126,Jan 3 2006, 08:32 PM]
Thanks, are there any High-resolution Voyager spacecraft images online (BOth NASA-JPL and NASA-KSC only post normal resolution artist impressions of the Voyager hardware )
Not very high res, but I have a couple Voyager mockup 3D images at this page:
http://www.donaldedavis.com/PARTS/3DPHOTOS.html
I have taken many digital photos of the Von Karman auditorium Voyager spacecraft mockup, let me know what angles you would like and I'll dig them up.
Don
Only some gif images labeled "unknown" ( = no NASA photo-number )
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/image/assembly.html
Amazing pictures, Phil.
Can someone explain why the dark color of the blankets, contrary to the usual gold cover? Which material they used?
Is the Von Karman auditorium Voyager spacecraft really a mockup? I was always under the impression that it was Voyager 3.
First I would like to thank those UMSF forum-members who contacted me off-forum... Here I'm sharing another 'artwork'
Here's another small resolution view of the Voyager in black blankets in the space simulation chamber. Notice the position of the booms
Sharing an amazing view of the check-out of Voyager's 13 meter long magnetometer in fully extended position. In space, with "zero gravity" conditions, the triangular epoxy glass mast spiraled from its housing and provided a rigid support for the two magnetometers at mid-point and far end of the boom, seen here above the test equipment.
The dual magnetometer set was an innovation pioneered by Mariner 10, where it would have taken a significant fraction of the very small mission budget to produce a "magnetically clean" spacecraft. The mid-way mag detects approximately the same spacecraft induced field as the outer mag, but at several times the field strength. Both instruments detect the same exterior field. As spacecaraft powere is switched on and off to different equipment, scan platforms and scanning instruments scan, etc, the difference between the two calibrates the spacecraft field component accuratly so it can be eliminated.
Oh well... May I ask more questions?
1. The 16 hydrazine engines of Voyager -- were these all of the 0.2 lbf MR-103H type or the four TCM engines were of a larger thrust?
2. What was the initial velocity of V2 and V1 after separation with the Star 37E kick-up motor?
Noticed Part II is on the Voyager computers, so it belongs in this Voyager hardware topic
http://history.nasa.gov/computers/contents.html
I was wondering if anyone knew the memory capacity & specs of the Digital tape recorder (DTR) onboard Voyager? I can't find it on the usual NASA sites. I know that they uploaded new image compression software on one of the "spare" 1802 processors for the Uranus/Neptune flyby to increase the number of images captured and save DSN time. Are there JPG type artifacts on those images, or was it just lossless http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run-length_encoding/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huffman_encoding type encoding?
Thanks for that - so the DTR can hold 8 tracks, 12 images per track. I wonder if thats with compression, or uncompressed? If uncompressed, well each image is 256 x 256 x 8 bits (256 grey scale) = 64K. 8 x 12 x 64 = 6144k, or 6 megabytes at a guess. That means next time you go out and take a picture with your new camera, just 1 picture at a high resolution is equal to all the data storage Voyager 2 had available during its Jupiter/Saturn/Uranus/Neptune flyby! Now as I said, they did implement better compression for the Uranus/Neptune flybys - I have to assume simple run-length compression for those old 1802's. If you look at the raw Cassini images, you will see a "comb" like effect - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run-length_encoding is applied to scan lines in pairs, but at the point where it fills up available space, the alternate vertical pixel is dropped. Is the same compression applied to Uranian/Neptunian images? Are there "Raw" images anywhere?
http://www.goldenrecord.org/
That's an awesome site. I tried to find a copy of the CD-ROM, but was stymied, so this was a nice substitution treat. (I did manage to locate a copy of the hardback book.)
I did a little digging to find out why the record is plated with gold, but didn't find any definitive information. Is it just because gold is shiny and might attract the attention of anyone examining the spacecraft, saying, "Hey! We, the people who built this emissary, value the contents of this box! Pay close attention to (possibly worn) diagrams."
I've always thought of gold as being very soft, and therefor not exactly ideal material to withstand space travel and its variety of unmitigated rigors.
Gold is very resistant to corrosion (like from atomic oxygen in LEO, or in this case prolonged passage though an interstellar gas cloud), and an excellent conductor of both heat & electricity (therefore resistant to spot-arcing or uneven thermal flex). It's a good material for this application.
This seems like an appropriate thread to post this in — here are several archive clips showing the Voyager spacecraft in various stages of construction:
http://www.footagevault.com/clip/FTV-0001398
http://www.footagevault.com/clip/FTV-0001399
http://www.footagevault.com/clip/FTV-0001400
http://www.footagevault.com/clip/FTV-0006097
http://www.footagevault.com/clip/FTV-0006099
http://www.footagevault.com/clip/FTV-0006205
A NASA film called "Project Voyager" can also be found on the http://www.footagevault.com website:
http://www.footagevault.com/clip/FTV-0006211
http://www.footagevault.com/clip/FTV-0006212
http://www.footagevault.com/clip/FTV-0006213
http://www.footagevault.com/clip/FTV-0006214
http://www.footagevault.com/clip/FTV-0006215
Of interest is the primitive animation of a "possible" encounter with Uranus, where the rings are noticeably absent, given that they had yet to be discovered at the time this documentary was produced!
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