Talk:Voyager 1/Archive 2

Speed as of entering interstellar space
The speed is given as 17.030 km/s (third paragraph summary) when Voyager 1 entered space. This does not seem to be possible? That's not so much less than the speed of light. Nevermind in the source only roughly twice that value is given for mph (38000). The numbers don't add up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.241.193.35 (talk) 17:34, 17 December 2014 (UTC)


 * The dot/period in this number is the decimal separator. Please refer to the Manual of Style at the section for Decimals. Fred Johansen (talk) 19:07, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Pluto
the Pluto portion of the mission being cancelled and replaced mid-flight with a flyby of Titan - While Voyager 1 could have been put on a path that would visit Pluto, its primary science objectives always included the Titan flyby - this JPL mission status bulletin from before launch in 1977 shows Voyager 1's planned trajectory through the Saturn system. There was never a point at which its mission plan preferred a visit to Pluto over Titan, and it was not launched with the intent of exploring Pluto.  A ( Ch ) 03:44, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The sources given say otherwise, and they are good sources. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:39, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * JPL documents indicate Titan was the intended destination from the beginning. The JPL FAQ specifically says "It was never planned that the Voyagers would visit Pluto." Saying the Pluto portion of the mission being cancelled and replaced mid-flight with a flyby of Titan was outright incorrect, and the replacement  the Pluto portion of the mission being disregarded mid-flight in favor of a flyby of Titan basically says exactly what my text does, except it gives the misleading impression that Titan wasn't the intended target from the beginning. Edit: And another source regarding mission preference for Titan over Pluto.  A ( Ch ) 06:36, 3 September 2015 (UTC) A ( Ch ) 06:24, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The Titan flyby was choice 1, and Pluto was the secondary choice, but they could change their minds before making the specific Titan burn. Pluto was always an option as per the sources. However i agree that the way I worded it readers might assume that Pluto was option 1. I removed it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:39, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Originally intended to explore Jupiter, Saturn, and possibly Pluto still implies Pluto was a prime destination rather than Titan, which was considered so important that Voyager 2 would have forsaken Neptune and Uranus if Voyager 1 didn't get the Titan flyby. Pluto was a possibility, but the mission was always to explore Jupiter, Saturn, and Titan, which is what the text should say.  A ( Ch ) 06:52, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * What you are claiming is not how the mission was communicated to the public, something I even recall from being there at the time. Fyunck is right that his sources are good, for Titan was only an option (even if it was option #1), and Neptune and Uranus were also options, because Pluto was the other option. It's a perfectly reasonable thing to run a mission so that options remain open until some critical time that a decision must be made. NASA has done that kind of thing all the time. It's just that these options were pretty major. But NASA always wants contingencies in case something comes up during the course of the mission. You don't take any risks you don't have to with billions of dollars and man-centuries of time and work invested. Yes, we do know now what choices were made, but there was not any inevitability about them, only a priority. Evensteven (talk) 17:13, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Of course there were other options, no one has said otherwise, or that Titan was the inevitable target. It was the priority target and the one the mission was planned around. It was the only moon known to have a substantial atmosphere, and one full of hydrocarbons. It was easily reachable - there was no way of knowing the probes would survive to be able to visit planets past Saturn. Once Voyager 1 got the Titan flyby, Voyager 2 was cleared to go on to Uranus and Neptune, since the other option was using it as a backup Titan flyby. The sources are perfectly good, in that they point out that Pluto was an option until they committed to Titan, just as planned. Which is exactly what While the spacecraft's course could have been altered to include a Pluto encounter by forgoing the Titan flyby, exploration of the moon, which was known to have a substantial atmosphere, took priority says.  A ( Ch ) 18:00, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, if there's no real disagreement left, it's just a matter of getting the article wording so that it looks right to all concerned, and hopefully we have a clear way forward to that end now. Evensteven (talk) 20:27, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

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Dating of current distances.
I went back through edits from far last year (2015) and found people dating the "Current distance of Voyager 2 from the Sun" with things like "120AU as of Winter 2015" or "as of Spring 2015" - that is absurd. Winter/Spring for who? Trying to keep this clean and friendly, but if you're editing a Science article you should at least understand the most basic science on Earth.

I have changed that to a more proper "as of April 2016." I'm posting this so this change can be upheld, as it would seem it had stayed that way for a long while.

Cewlt (talk) 04:21, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Past, in 2013-14 days, I did it as XXX AU as of MM-YYYY. It was better than now, in all sense. -The Herald (Benison) • the joy of the LORD my strength 06:38, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Italics
Shouldn't Voyager 1 be italicized? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 22:27, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

December 2017 Use of Backup Thrusters
Found article in The Irish Times that NASA had announced that Voyager 1's backup thrusters had be fired up, the first time in 37 years. The thrusters will allow Voyager 1 to continue for the next one to years to send data back to NASA.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/voyager-1-spacecraft-thrusters-fire-up-after-decades-idle-1.3315654 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sydney Rigdon (talk • contribs) 21:43, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Gyroscopic operations continuation is then more than 2017. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:302:D13A:5DA0:70D8:5816:60D4:300 (talk) 20:43, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Escape velocity
The escape velocity of the Sun are 618 km/s. How could Voyager 1 leave it and enter interstellar space at "just" 17 km/s? 212.186.0.174 (talk) 11:40, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The escape velocity you mention is for a body in the vicinity of the sun itself. The further away you are, the lower the escape velocity becomes. Voyager_2 has a graph showing the solar system escape velocity vs actual velocity, at various points, for Voyager 2. As you can see it has been consistently above the required velocity ever since its fly-by of Jupiter. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 13:05, 10 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I see, thank you. So these 618 km/s are the escape velocity just on or near the surface of the Sun, right? 212.186.0.174 (talk) 15:50, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Or how do we define "vicinity of the Sun"? 212.186.0.174 (talk) 04:00, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
 * According to the Sun article, that figure is the escape velocity at the surface. The sentence in this article is poorly written, anyway, as it implies there is just a single escape velocity. And it's uncited. Will have a go at improving it later. Cheers &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 07:39, 12 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Alright, thank you. Cheers! 212.186.0.174 (talk) 10:15, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Was certain external cabling on Voyager 1 covered with aluminum foil?
From what I remember, one of the things mentioned in the documentary "The Farthest: Voyager in Space" was that concerns arose about Jupiter's magnetic fields shortly before Voyager 1 was to be launched. Specifically, the concern was that systems on the spacecraft could be damaged or destroyed if certain external cabling on the spacecraft was exposed to Jupiter's magnetic fields. To provide protection, certain parts of Voyager 1 were covered with kitchen-grade aluminum foil and the foil was connected or bonded to a grounded portion of the spacecraft.

Among other places, there is mention of this use of aluminum foil in this AOL News article and in this Daily News article. If the claim about using kitchen-grade aluminum foil to protect external cabling on the spacecraft is accurate and can be reliably sourced, it might be worth a quick mention in the article. --Elegie (talk) 06:25, 21 June 2018 (UTC)


 * This message is to say thanks for your feedback in this WP:Reference desk conversation. Based on the conversation, would it be useful to add a statement (along with references) like the following to the Voyager 1 article (possibly in the "Spacecraft components" subsection)?


 * Shortly before launch, strips of kitchen-grade aluminum foil were applied to certain cabling on Voyager 1 in order to provide shielding against Jupiter's radiation.


 * --Elegie (talk) 07:45, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

No mention of the Propulsion Module
Article does not seem to mention or show the Propulsion Module, a Star-37E solid fuel motor (almost as large and massive as the Mission Module), which provided another 2 km/s after separation from the Centaur stage. - Rod57 (talk) 21:43, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Italic conflict
Can anyone explain why the title is italicized but it is not in the boldface? I tried looking at italic guides for sattelite or probes but there's none. Can anyone explain the conflicting formats?  Gerald WL  10:09, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

wrong image
that's Star Trek not the Voyager 1 spacecraft 2001:569:7DC4:3A00:4CD4:F0C2:AE8B:ACF3 (talk) 00:13, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Remaining lifespan cleanup
Cleaned up the table since it's very outdated based mostly on information from the Voyager Program web site, I suspect Voyager 2 will need a similar cleanup but hoping someone can check my work here first --Zerbey (talk) 16:24, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Current lede about its distance from Earth
I think noting the exact distance of Voyager 1 from Earth with updating it every week is a bit indiscriminate here. We can assume it will be the farthest traveled man-made object until such time that adjustments should be made. Noting the exact distance in AU and kilometers has no bearing in context with the lede - it can be summarized as the object is in interstellar space. Thoughts? – The Grid  ( talk )  20:44, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

STOP changing the distance from Earth so often!
Some idiot IP 69.161.127.235 keeps making uncited fractional changes to the distance. Voyager 1 is traveling at a constant speed of about 17 km/sec. (according to User:Phoenix777) which means it takes 58,823 seconds to go one million (0.001 billion) kilometers. More precision than this is certainly considered "noise" by professional scientists and engineers. Since there are 86,400 seconds in a day, the figure should only increase 0.001 billion per day. So let's GTHU and stop changing it so often, or providing false precision to the nearest kilometer. I haven't checked, but the same thing probably applies to Voyager 2. JustinTime55 (talk) 12:56, 6 October 2022 (UTC) JustinTime55 (talk) 12:56, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

List of Earth's most distant spacecrafts
Is this possible to create list Earth's most distant spacecrafts? Eurohunter (talk) 17:44, 29 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Though not spacecrafts, we do have a list of Solar System objects most distant from the Sun. The Herald (Benison) (talk) 03:24, 2 May 2023 (UTC)


 * , we also have List of artificial objects leaving the Solar System. --Marc Kupper&#124;talk 20:14, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Power figures
...The RTGs generated about 470 W of electric power at the time of launch, with the remainder being dissipated as waste heat.[27] The power output of the RTGs declines over time due to the 87.7-year half-life of the fuel and degradation of the thermocouples, but the craft's RTGs will continue to support some of its operations until 2025.[22][26] 

Wattage is useless by itself unless one knows the duration this output occurred over. I assume this means watt-hours, but it not stated here. 57.135.233.22 (talk) 07:12, 29 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Watts is used correctly here. RTGs produce continuous output. 2600:6C52:6000:1380:D155:FD3C:E896:9943 (talk) 07:20, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Distance from Earth
How about At a distance of 160 AU from Earth, it is the most distant human-made object from Earth.

instead of At a distance of 160.221 AU from Earth, it is the most distant human-made object from Earth.

This will be much better, almost accurate and better stability for the article. The Herald (Benison) (talk) 22:18, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I think it's a good suggestion.You might also be interested in participating in the discussion at Talk:Voyager 2. Schazjmd   (talk)  22:26, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Power supply duration
Citation #14 says it will stop sending data in 2025. But the source has changed/ been corrected. Now the value is 2036.

"Even if science data won't likely be collected after 2025, engineering data could continue to be returned for several more years. The two Voyager spacecraft could remain in the range of the Deep Space Network through about 2036, depending on how much power the spacecraft still have to transmit a signal back to Earth."

Please fix. 81.33.77.127 (talk) 12:37, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅, in lead, although other editors should check the language, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:02, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Looks good :) The Herald (Benison) (talk) 14:06, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

communications
"On December 12, 2023, NASA announced that Voyager 1's flight data system is currently unable to use its telemetry modulation unit, rendering the probe unable to transmit usable scientific data. It is unknown whether the probe will be able to continue its mission."

A youtube video says that it is working again. Is that right? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 00:26, 24 March 2024 (UTC)


 * It depends. Is the source of the information reliable? Who made the video? Did it include any specific details? A link to the video could help answer those questions. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 01:41, 24 March 2024 (UTC)


 * It says NASASpaceNews, but I don't know if it is NASA. here Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 02:32, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * NASASpaceNews doesn't appear to be an 'official' NASA site, they appear to be a space news aggregator of sorts. According to the official NASA site for Voyager, they sent a 'poke' out to the craft on March 1, and got some data back that differed from the unintelligible stream that had been coming in. They're now analyzing it, which is obviously laborious and time consuming with the roundtrip delay. I'd update the article myself but there are editors who more regularly maintain this article who could do it better:
 * https://blogs.nasa.gov/voyager/2024/03/15/nasa-engineers-make-progress-toward-understanding-voyager-1-issue/
 * cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 04:53, 26 March 2024 (UTC)