8.6 Billion Miles from Earth: The End of Voyager 2 Mission?

Engineers have shifted NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft into a mode that transmits only spacecraft health and status data while they diagnose an unexpected change in the pattern of returning data. Preliminary engineering data received on May 1 show the spacecraft is basically healthy, and that the source of the issue is the flight data system, which is responsible for formatting the data to send back to Earth. The change in the data return pattern has prevented mission managers from decoding science data.

The first changes in the return of data packets from Voyager 2, which is near the edge of our solar system, appeared on April 22. Mission team members have been working to troubleshoot and resume the regular flow of science data. Because of a planned roll maneuver and moratorium on sending commands, engineers got their first chance to send commands to the spacecraft on April 30. It takes nearly 13 hours for signals to reach the spacecraft and nearly 13 hours for signals to come down to NASA's Deep Space Network on Earth.

Voyager 2 launched on August 20, 1977, about two weeks before its twin spacecraft, Voyager 1. The two spacecraft are the most distant human-made objects, out at the edge of the heliosphere, the bubble the sun creates around the solar system. Mission managers expect Voyager 1 to leave our solar system and enter interstellar space in the next five years or so, with Voyager 2 on track to enter interstellar space shortly afterward. Voyager 1 is in good health and performing normally.

"Voyager 2's initial mission was a four-year journey to Saturn, but it is still returning data 33 years later," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "It has already given us remarkable views of Uranus and Neptune, planets we had never seen close-up before. We will know soon what it will take for it to continue its epic journey of discovery."

As part of a mission extension, Voyager 2 also flew by Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989, taking advantage of a once-in-176-year alignment to take a grand tour of the outer planets. Among its many findings, Voyager 2 discovered Neptune's Great Dark Spot and 450-meter-per-second (1,000-mph) winds. It also detected geysers erupting from the pinkish-hued nitrogen ice that forms the polar cap of Neptune's moon Triton. Working in concert with Voyager 1, it also helped discover actively erupting volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io, and waves and kinks in Saturn's icy rings from the tugs of nearby moons.

Voyager 2 is about 13.8 billion kilometers, or 8.6 billion miles, from Earth. Voyager 1 is about 16.9 billion kilometers (10.5 billion miles) away from Earth.

Jason McManus via NASA/JPL

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.This artist's rendering depicts NASAs Voyager 2 spacecraft as it studies the outer limits of the heliosphere - a magnetic 'bubble' around the solar system that is created by the solar wind.

Comments

[Fernando Bergamaschi]

This is a fantastic project! Something we have to be proud.
Hope more money is invested in projects like this and not in stupid wars.

[Christian Rioux]

Back then, thing were built though. Nowaday, computers crash or fail all the time.

[K.M. Newton]

Hypothetical question: Could relativity be influencing this? Could there be a time distortion/change at the heliosphere? Would this corrupt the "data return pattern" that "has prevented mission managers from decoding science data"?

[eric trzaska]

33 years later and just now it has problems sending info when it's near the edge...

somethings up..

my guess is....we are some alien or gods thought, dream or game and we is near the end of the playing board.

[Dave]

How would you program these things at this point? We have no idea what is out there.

[ronnie wood]

so much seen , yet so little released....too bad.. good going with voyager, more people should be allowed more of the unseen info....
there are things seen only by #1 and perhaps if we all seen the data, someone could answer those questions?

[qed]

It is clear that Voyagers' computer software were made before Microsoft created its operating system.

Future missions should use Linux, the gift of Finland to the world.

[eric trzaska]

i agree with qed, finland in itself is a girt to the world.

[Brian]

I'm just amazed that a machine that was launched in 1977 is still functioning. And who knows? The cause of this "problem" may yet turn out to be something amazing that changes our view of the Universe.

[Tom Edgar]

33 years and continually running. And still Ford/GM can't match Toyota.
I say GM/Ford should be NASAnalised

[steve]

Is voyager 2 further away than Voyager 1? Did it finally just die or is there something that's killing it?

[dirk alan]

who else died at 33 ? resurection ? hang in there v - ger.

[Bruce]

The transition to V-ger has begun.
We need to start recording and archiving
whale songs immediately, and do everything
we can to insure the survival of whales
from now forward.

[Ramkumar]

"A billion years from now, when everything that we have ever built on Earth has crumbled into dust, when the continents are changed beyond recognition, and our species is unimaginably altered, or extinct, the Voyager Record will still speak for us."
Carl Sagan

http://goldenrecord.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record

[bumpy]

It will be significant if the other Voyager also changes its behavior soon. Even more significant if it changes in the same way.

[India Travel guide]

Voyager 2 launched on August 20, 1977, about two weeks before its twin spacecraft, Voyager 1

[finger skate]

Finger skate are used by a range of people from those utilizing them as toys to skateboarding and related sports professionals envisioning not only their own skating maneuvers but for others as well and can include the use for planning out competition courses as skating boarding develops into an international sport.

Skate with your fingers, another feeling

[rondo]

33 years later, still chugging along...

1). It wasn't made in China
2). It wasn't powered by Microsoft.
3). We could never, ever, EVER, make another one like it.