Voyager 1
The Voyager 1 was designed to take advantage of a rare geometric arrangement of the outer planets that occurs only once every 176 years. This configuration allows a spacecraft to swing from one planet to the next without the need for large onboard propulsion systems; the flyby of each planet both accelerates the spacecraft and bends its flight path. Without this gravity assist, the flight time to Neptune would be 30 years.
Voyager 1, launched on September 5, 1977 at the Cape Canaveral, have explored Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn and Neptune, along with dozens of their moons. In addition, it has been studying the solar wind, the stream of solar plasma expanding from the sun at nearly a million miles per hour. It consists of a decahedral bus, 47 cm in height and 1.78 m across. A 3.66 m diameter high-gain antenna was mounted on top of the bus. The Voyager ows its longevity to its nuclear power sources, called radioisotope thermoelectric generators.
Voyager 1 is already the most distant human-made object in the cosmos. It is now at the outer edge of our solar system.
Voyager 1 (similarly to Voyager 2) has a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk. The disk has recorded on it sounds and images of Earth designed to portray the diversity of life and culture on the planet. Each disk is encased in a protective aluminum jacket. The 115 images on the disk were encoded in analog form. The sound selections (including greetings in 55 languages, 35 sounds, natural and man-made, and portions of 27 musical pieces) are designed for playback at 1000 rpm. The Voyagers were not the first spacecraft designed with such messages to the future. Pioneers 10 and 11, LAGEOS, and the Apollo landers also included plaques with a similar intent, though not quite so ambitious.
Astronautics faculty Dr. Jerry Hintz worked on Staff of the Voyager Flight Engineering Office for the Neptune Encounter, Dr. Don Shemansky worked on designing an instrument measuring ultraviolet radiation in space, and Dr. Darrell Judge and Dr. Mike Gruntman studied interstellar gas inflowing into the solar system.
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The voyager Golden Record is a phonograph record included in the Voyager 1 spacecraft launch in 1997. It contains sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of of life and culture on Earth. It is intended for any intelligent extra-terrestrial from, or far future humans, that may find it. The Voyager space craft will take about 40,000 years to come near another star.
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The Voyager 1 spacecraft sent to explore
the giant outer planets in our solar system
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