No, we didn't lose communication with Voyager 2 for a year!
Hi .We are going to talk about the Voyager mission: have you ever heard of it?
It is one of the most famous space exploration missions of all time and was planned by NASA
some decades ago. The aim of this video is twofold.
The first thing we want to do is explain what is Voyager mission is and why it has been
such an important one in the history of space exploration.
The second thing we want to do, instead, is try to debunk some misconceptions that have
been built around this mission. In particular, we want to better explain what we mean when
we say “NASA lost communication with Voyager”. We would like to give you the best information
possible because science is not based upon misconceptions. It is based upon crystal clear
facts, that always have a precise meaning or explanation.
Follow me in this video and you'll soon realize that we, humans, are very good at space exploration
and no, we didn't lose communication with Voyager 2 for a year.
(roll intro)
So basically, in the 70s, NASA had the fantastic idea to send spacecraft outside of the solar
system, in the interstellar space. It was like: okay, let's go where nothing
from Earth has flown before, let's see what we find.
This idea came to mind in the summer of 1965. At that time, some precise calculations revealed
it was possible for us to launch a spacecraft in the late 1970s to visit all four giant
outer planets, using the gravity of each planet to swing the probe onto the next.
This sort of alignment is quite rare, it is called a LAUNCH WINDOW, and it occurs once
every 176 years. So if one wanted to launch such a spacecraft,
he would have been pretty quick.
In July 1972, the project began. It was first dubbed Mariner mission, but then NASA announced
the name would have been Voyager. The original plans for this mission were pretty simple:
they wanted to make a grand tour of the solar system, flying Jupiter and Saturn, before
exiting the solar system.
The two spacecraft, Voyager 1 and 2, were launched respectively on September and August
1977, from NASA's Kennedy Space centre. As you can see, there is something weird going
on between names and launch dates. The first to have been launched chronologically was
Voyager 2. It was named Voyager 2 because, even though it launched first, it was planned
to reach Jupiter and Saturn after Voyager 1.
On September 1977, one day after its launch, Voyager 1 sent us a photo of Earth and Moon
from its own point of view. Then, in November 1980, it was time for Saturn.
Voyager 1 made its closest approach to Saturn's largest moon Titan and Saturn, giving us beautiful
pictures and precious scientific data. The beauty of this encounter however lies in the
discovery of three of Saturn's moons: Atlas, Prometheus and Pandora. This date gave us
a better understanding of moon atmospheres and compositions.
Voyager 2 reached Saturn a year later, and in January 1986 it encountered Uranus.
This was the first time the seventh astonishing blue planet from the Sun has been seen up-close.
Upon approach, images revealed 11 new moons. All of them were given beautiful names, such
as Juliet, Ophelia and Bianca. Voyager 2 was also the first to image Uranus's very dark
rings and to detect temperatures as low as minus 353 degrees (59 Kelvin=, which made
Uranus the coldest planet in our Solar System!
But this encounter was a challenging one to detect from Earth.
In fact, as spacecraft go further and further away from the Earth, their signal gets low.
And we have hard times trying to detect it. For the occasion, NASA's Deep Space Network,
which enables Earth to communicate with spacecraft beyond the moon, arrayed antennas together
to improve our ability to capture the weak radio signals from very distant spacecraft.
And it of course succeeded. In August 1987 NASA expanded its ears, meaning
that bigger dishes at all three communications complexes in Goldstone, Madrid and Canberra
substituted smaller ones. This of course improved our resolution and was a good thing since
Voyager was soon expected to send back signals from Neptune.
When the Voyager mission reached the distance of about 4 billion miles from the sun, it
took the last images of the mission. Such images were capturing Venus, Earth, Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and the collage of them made up the so-called “Solar System
family portrait”. There, the Earth can be seen as a “Pale
blue dot”, as Carl Sagan said.
As we've said, these were the last images taken from Voyager, because engineers turned
off Voyager 1's cameras, in order to save some power for other instruments that would
have collected key data on the solar wind and interstellar space once the spacecraft
would have left the solar system.
In the year 2004 Voyager 1 crossed the Shock, meaning the termination shock into the heliosheath,
the outer layer of the bubble the sun blows around itself and all of the planets.
In 2007 it's time for Voyager 2 instead.
In 2012 and 2018, Voyager 1 and 2 finally entered the interstellar space, passing beyond
the heliopause. This ladies and gentlemen, were the first
time a human-made object crossed the threshold of interstellar space. Can you believe it?
This makes landing on the moon look like a trip to the shops.
The probes themselves were built with 1970s technology and the most advanced processors
would have been under 1Mb. Voyager 2 is incredibly primitive compared
to what is available today, just think about your smartphone, for example, it is way more
sophisticated. V2 has travelled 11 billion miles, controlled
from here for 43 of its 44 years, taken photographs and collected other information then sent
the info back to Earth.
But now, let's go to the real point. In 2020, Voyager 2 had some problems.
People were concerned about this, and newspapers all around the world were talking about it.
On Jan. 25, the probe, which has been exploring interstellar space since November 2018, failed
to execute a spin manoeuvre as intended. As a result, two onboard systems remained
on longer than planned, sucking up so much energy that Voyager 2 automatically shut off
its science instruments.
This is pretty much what happened. There's no need to be surprised, I mean, we
are speaking of a spacecraft that had been travelling through space for 43 years, and
it is now the furthest human object ever made. Every so often, something goes wrong. It would
be very unusual if it didn't.
But luckily, the mission’s managers on our planet know what to do when such a fault occurs.
Although it takes about a day and a half to talk to Voyager 2 at its current distance,
they sent commands to restore its normal operations. And everything was perfectly fine. The problem
was fixed!
Is this the end of the story? Of course, not. Because they went on saying
there was something wrong with Voyager 2. The reality of facts is that starting from
March 2020, engineers are not able to communicate with the probe.
And here we are: we should explain what we mean by “engineers are not able to communicate
with the probe” and also, we should explain that this is not due to a malfunction of the
probe.
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Let's see what really happened. Upgrades and repairs are prompting NASA to
take offline a key piece of space-age equipment used to beam messages all around the solar
system. The downtime was necessary because of a flood
of new missions to Mars scheduled to leave Earth in summer 2020. But the temporary shutdown
also highlighted that the Deep Space Network, an essential infrastructure relied upon by
NASA and other space agencies, was ageing and in need of expensive upgrades.
Why? Well, it is simple if we think bigger.
We are talking about Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, but have you ever wondered how many spacecraft
is NASA trying to communicate with at this exact moment?
It is an armada of spacecraft. These long-distance calls require the most
powerful radio antennas in the world. Luckily NASA has its own switchboard, the Deep Space
Network or DSN. The DSN is one of space exploration’s most
valuable assets. It comprises one station in the United States — in Goldstone, Calif.
— and two overseas in Canberra, Australia, and Madrid. It has been in operation nonstop
for 57 years, and without it, spacecraft that travelled beyond the moon couldn’t communicate
with Earth. It is used not only by NASA but also by the European Space Agency and the
space programs of Japan, India and soon even the United Arab Emirates.
Each station on Earth is outfitted with three 34-meter antennas and one 70-meter antenna.
They switch back and forth depending on where a spacecraft is concerning our planet.
Because of Voyager 2’s trajectory relative to Earth, it can talk to only one station
and one antenna in the network: Canberra’s 70-meter dish, also known as DSS 43. And that
dish needed to be improved for the new Mars missions, prompting a shutdown and temporary
dismantlement.
All of this, however, was perfectly fine, and it was a risk that we had to take.
We understand that the situation was like this: Voyager 2 could communicate with us.
Signals from the probe were reaching us, and we could collect data.
The bad thing is that, if something again would have gone wrong, we would not be able
to fix it because we couldn't communicate with the spacecraft.
That was the problem.
As you see, some newspaper titles were misleading and led to a bad understanding of what was
going on.
Because Voyager 2 is considered a “geriatric” spacecraft, losing contact with it for any
length of time was risky. The antenna, however, went perfectly back on track on February 2021
and we re-established contact with the probe.
We would like to end this video by giving you some precious information about the Voyager
mission. It was the mission of some “firsts”.
For example, it was the first spacecraft to cross the heliosphere, and venture into interstellar
space. It also discovered a thin ring around Jupiter
and two new Jovian moons: Thebe and Metis.
At Saturn, Voyager 1 found a new ring called the G-ring.
Also, Voyager 1 and its sister ship Voyager 2 have been flying longer than any other spacecraft
in human history.
And, last but not least, a fun fact: Voyager 1 carries a copy of the Golden Record: a message
from humanity to the cosmos. Among other things, it includes greetings
in 55 languages and music ranging from Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode and Beethoven's classical
music.
All of this tells us that we, humans, are very good explorers, with good music tastes.
"This video ends here! Thanks for watching everyone! What are your feelings about the
Voyager mission? Let us know in the comments below! See you soon on the channel!”