The Voyager 1 spacecraft is a 722-kilogram (1,590 lb) space probe launched by the US space agency, NASA, on September 5, 1977 to study the outer Solar System and interstellar medium. Operating for 36 years and 8 days as of 13 September 2013, the spacecraft communicates with the Deep Space Network to receive routine commands and return data. At a distance of about 125 AU from the Sun as of August 2013,[3][4] it is the farthest man-made object from Earth. On September 12, 2013, NASA announced that Voyager 1 had entered a previously unstudied region of space known as interstellar space on August 25, 2012, making it the first man-made object to do so.[5][6][7][8][9][10] As of 2013, the probe was moving with a relative velocity to the Sun of 17 kilometres per second (11 mi/s).[11] The amount of power available to the probe has decreased over time and will no longer be able to power any single instrument by 2025. As part of the Voyager program, and like its sister craft Voyager 2, the spacecraft is in an extended mission, tasked with locating and studying the boundaries of the Solar System, including the Kuiper belt, the heliosphere and to enter interstellar space. The primary mission ended on November 20, 1980, after encountering the Jovian system in 1979 and the Saturnian system in 1980. It was the first probe to provide detailed images of the two planets and their moons.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 16:05:39 +0000
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