If you try to start a car that has been in the garage for decades, you expect the engine not to respond. But a set of propellers onboard the NASA Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched on Wednesday, November 29, 37 years after its last use without any problems. Voyager 1 is the only man-made object that has arrived in interstellar space, being also the space probe created by NASA, which travels at the highest speed and is at the highest distance from Terra.
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The probe flies for 40 years and can change its position to keep its antenna pointing to the Terra using some small propellers operating in very short halves,NASA Started a Propeller set on Board Voyager 1 After 37 Years of Break Articles in the order of milliseconds. NASA’s Voyager team has been able to launch a set of back-up propellants that had not been in use since 1980. The test succeeds in extending Voyager 1’s life to a minimum of 2-3 years. In 2014, NASA engineers noticed that Voyager’s propellers used to change direction degraded. Over time, propellers end up working longer than normal to get the same effect on the direction of the probe. NASA experts have designed several working scenarios to solve the problem and concluded that it is best to use a series of back-up engines to control the probe’s direction. These propellants had not been used for 37 years. NASA has been forced to search for decades old archives and use an obsolete programming language that no one uses to compile commands that have been transmitted by radio waves to the small computer on board to Voyager 1. The probe is more than 20 billion km from Terra. In the early years of the mission, Voyager 1 passed past Jupiter, Saturn and some of the satellites of these planets. In order to maintain the correct distance and orientation of on-board instruments, engineers used a series of Trajectory Correction Maneuvers (TCM) with dedicated, but identical size and functionality to those used for small flight corrections. These propellers used to correct the trajectory are placed on the back of the probe. After the encounter with Saturn, Voyager 1 did not need them, the last use being on November 8, 1980. These propellers had been used in a different way, meaning they were operating for long periods, not for very short-lived pulses. All engines on board Voyager were produced by Aerojet Rocketdyne, the same type of engine being installed on other spacecraft such as Cassini and Dawn. On November 28, Voyager engineers started the four TCM engines and tested their ability to steer the probe using 10 millisecond pulses. Researchers were then forced to wait for the test results to travel through space, in the form of radio waves, to be received after 19 h and 35 min by an antenna from Goldstone, California, part of NASA’s Deep Space network.
Keywords: Voyager 1, Propellers, NASA, Space Agency.
Introduction
If you try to start a car that has been in the garage for decades, you expect the engine not to respond. But a set of propellers onboard the NASA Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched on Wednesday, November 29, 37 years after its last use without any problems.
Voyager 1 is the only man-made object that has arrived in interstellar space, being also the space probe created by NASA, which travels at the highest speed and is at the highest distance from Terra. The probe flies for 40 years and can change its position to keep its antenna pointing to the Terra using some small propellers operating in very short halves, in the order of milliseconds.
NASA’s Voyager team has been able to launch a set of back-up propellants that had not been in use since 1980. The test succeeds in extending Voyager 1’s life to a minimum of 2-3 years.
In 2014, NASA engineers noticed that Voyager’s propellers used to change direction degraded. Over time, propellers end up working longer than normal to get the same effect on the direction of the probe. NASA experts have designed several working scenarios to solve the problem and concluded that it is best to use a series of back-up engines to control the probe’s direction.
These propellants had not been used for 37 years. NASA has been forced to search for decades old archives and use an obsolete programming language that no one uses to compile commands that have been transmitted by radio waves to the small computer on board to Voyager 1.
The probe is more than 20 billion km from Terra. In the early years of the mission, Voyager 1 passed past Jupiter, Saturn and some of the satellites of these planets.
In order to maintain the correct distance and orientation of on-board instruments, engineers used a series of Trajectory Correction Maneuvers (TCM) with dedicated, but identical size and functionality to those used for small flight corrections. These propellers used to correct the trajectory are placed on the back of the probe.
After the encounter with Saturn, Voyager 1 did not need them, the last use being on November 8, 1980. These propellers had been used in a different way, meaning they were operating for long periods, not for very short-lived pulses. All engines on board Voyager were produced by Aerojet Rocketdyne, the same type of engine being installed on other spacecraft such as Cassini and Dawn. On November 28, Voyager engineers started the four TCM engines and tested their ability to steer the probe using 10 millisecond pulses. Researchers were then forced to wait for the test results to travel through space, in the form of radio waves, to be received after 19 h and 35 min by an antenna from Goldstone, California, part of NASA’s Deep Space network. On November 29, engineers learned that the engines worked perfectly. Now, the plan is that, as of January, Voyager 1 will only use these four propellers to target the antenna to Terra. These engines need heat to propel the probe and heat is obtained using the energy supplied by a small nuclear reactor that has as fuel a plutonium isotope. As the energy reserve is limited, engineers are planning to use these propellers for a limited period of time and will reuse start-up motors to orient the antenna when the energy reserves are too low.
Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, still in operation. He visited the planets Saturn and Jupiter, being the first probe to transmit images to the satellites of these planets. Her sister, Voyager 2, was launched on August 20, 1977 (before Voyager 1) is the only probe that has visited all four large planets of the Solar System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, due to the alignment of these planets. After completing their initial plan to study the planets, the two probes continued their journey into space. Voyager 1 left the heliosphere in August 2012, entering the interstellar space. Voyager 2 will follow in a few years (Petrescu et al., 2017a; 2017b; 2017c; 2017d; 2017e; 2017f; 2017g; 2017h; 2017i; 2017j; 2017k; 2017l; 2017m; 2017n; 2017o; 2017p; 2017q; Petrescu, 2016; Aversa et al., 2017a; 2017b; 2017c; 2017d; 2017e; 2016a; 2016b; 2016c; 2016d; Mirsayar et al., 2017; Petrescu and Petrescu, 2016a; 2016b; 2016c; 2013a; 2013b; 2013c; 2013d; 2012a; 2012b; 2012c; 2012d; 2011a; 2011b; Petrescu, 2012a; 2012b; 2009; Petrescu and Calautit, 2016a; 2016b; Petrescu et al., 2016a; 2016b).
Materials and Methods
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the most renowned and important independent agency of the federal government of the United States, responsible for civilian space programs as well as all aeronautical and aerospace research programs initiated by the United States of America.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who set up NASA in 1958, mainly thought of it as having a distinct civil (more than military) orientation in order to be able to create independent, independent missions to conquer the cosmic space, obviously the sea passion and basic mission of humanity, seen as something superior, namely to learn as much as possible about the space we live in and try to conquer it in the next millennium. We can’t be locked here on our planet and not think of who we are, where we come from, where we go, what we represent in the giant universe in which we are, how we can know it and explore it, which are its limits and how we can learn other surrounding verses. Too many questions for a small man, but very few for a humanity so big and especially so important!
A Law on Aeronautics and National Space was adopted on 29 July 1958, abolishing NASA’s predecessor, the National Aeronautical Advisory Committee (NACA). Thus, the new agency became operational on 1 October 1958.
Immediately, the agency got its rights and started to work, most US space exploration efforts have since been run by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station and, later, the space shuttle. The years have passed and NASA has been constantly working with perseverance, sending reconnaissance missions on the Moon, Mars and then on all the planets of the Solar System.
At present, NASA is the main space pillar that supports the international space station and oversees the development of the Orion multi-purpose crew, space launch and commercial crew vehicles at the same time.
The Agency is also responsible for the Service Launch Program (LSP), an important program to oversee launch operations and especially the management of special NASA launch programs.
NASA is also the world’s leading international operator, focusing on space exploration programs not only on flights, but also through the creation and use of more and more powerful telescopes capable of scans the whole universe we are in. It is important to know the planets that could provide living conditions for mankind, with the obvious task of conquering, tertifying and colonizing them. The expansion of humanity in outer space has become imperative because our planet’s population is constantly multiplying while planet resources diminish.
If modern telescopes have the role of exploring cosmic space and finding planets that can provide life, there is a need for huge, fast ships that can travel to them in real time.
NASA is also focusing on a better understanding of the Earth through the Earth Observation System, advancing heliophysics through Heliophysics mission research efforts, exploring bodies throughout the solar system with robotic spaceship missions such as New Horizons and exploring astrophysical topics like the Big Bang through the Observatory Sea and associated programs (NASA, From Wikipedia).
Results
Voyager 1 is one of two NASA spacecraft launched on September 5, 1977, to study the outer planets of the Solar System that had previously been observed only by telescopes on Earth. This mission is made possible by an exceptional alignment of the outer planets that only happens every 176 years. The main objective of Voyager 1 is to collect data on the systems of Jupiter and Saturn with a particular emphasis on the main moon of the latter, Titan.
Voyager 1, with its twin probe, is at the origin of a large number of discoveries on the Solar System sometimes calling into question or refining the existing theoretical models.
As such, it is one of the most successful space missions of the US Space Agency. Among the most remarkable results are the complex functioning of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, the first observation of Jupiter’s rings, the discovery of Io’s volcanism, the strange structure of the surface of Europe, the composition of the atmosphere of Titan, the unexpected structure of the rings of Saturn as well as the discovery of several small moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
The spacecraft is very long-lived and still has operational instruments in 2015 that collect scientific data on the environment. It left in August 2012 the heliosphere – the region of space under the magnetic influence of the Sun – and is now progressing in the interstellar medium. Starting in 2020, however, the instruments will have to be phased out in order to cope with the weakening of its source of electrical energy, supplied by three thermoelectric radioisotope generators due to the distance of the Sun. Voyager 1 will no longer be able to transmit data beyond 2025.
Voyager 1 is a 825.5 kg space probe (propellant included) centered around a huge 3.66 m diameter parabolic antenna whose size is intended to compensate for the remoteness of the Earth. It carries ten scientific instruments representing a mass of 104.8 kg, part of which is located on a steerable platform. As of October 11, 2017, the spacecraft is approximately 20,944,040,000 km (140 ua) from the Sun and approximately 21,008,710,000 km (140.43 ua) from the Earth.
Voyager 1 is, along with Voyager 2, one of the two probes composing the Voyager program. This space program is set up by the American Space Agency (NASA), to explore the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn and beyond) which have not been studied so far because of the technical complexity of a such project. The space agency wishes to take advantage of an exceptional conjunction of the outer planets which is only repeated every 176 years and which must allow the probes to fly over several planets practically without spending fuel, by using the gravitational assistance of the objects previously visited.
After giving up budget reasons for a very ambitious project, NASA manages to build two machines perfectly suited to this complex program, as will be proven by the longevity and quality of the scientific equipment collected by the two probes. The project was officially launched on 1 July 1972 and the manufacture of space probes began in March 1975 with the completion of the design phase. The Pioneer 10 (launched in 1972) and 11 (1973) probes, which are responsible for recognizing the route, provide vital information on the shape and intensity of the radiation around the planet Jupiter that is taken into account in the design of the Voyager.
The objective of the Voyager program is to collect scientific data on the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) which at the time were virtually unexplored: Only Pioneer 10 and 11, light probes developed to serve as scouts at Voyager probes but with few instruments, have so far approached Jupiter and Saturn. The main objective assigned to both probes is to collect data to better understand the two giant planets, their magnetosphere and their natural satellites. The latter, some of which are the size of a planet, are very poorly known. The study of the moon Titan, which is already known at the time that it has an evolved atmosphere, is considered as important as the exploration of Saturn, its mother planet. Finally, the collection of data on the two other giant planets of the Solar System, Uranus and Neptune, on which very little information is acquired because of their remoteness, constitutes a major objective insofar as the study of Jupiter and Saturn could be completed.
Voyager 1, which precedes its twin probe, has for initial objective to explore Jupiter and Saturn. It must complete its exploration mission by flying close to Titan, the main moon of Saturn. But it must, to achieve this, perform a maneuver that makes him leave the plane of the ecliptic, excluding any possibility of exploring another outside planet. The overflight and study of Uranus and Neptune are thus entrusted to Voyager 2. To pass from Jupiter to Saturn, the probe uses the gravitational assistance of the first planet which gives it a significant acceleration while placing it in the direction of the second.
Given their good operational status at the end of their primary mission in 1989, new targets were set for space probes after flying over the outer planets. The aim of the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM) mission is to study very poorly known regions located at the limits of the Sun’s influence zone. The final shock and the heliopause are distinguished before, once the heliogaine crossed, to emerge in the interstellar medium whose characteristics no longer depend on our star.
Voyager 1 is a 825.5 kg probe (propellant included) whose central part consists of a flattened aluminum cylinder with ten lateral facets with a diameter of 188 cm and a height of 47 cm. This structure contains most of the electronics protected by a shield and a tank in which is stored the hydrazine used for propulsion. A parabolic dish with a fixed gain of 3.66 m in diameter is attached to the top of the cylinder. Its large size allows an exceptional 7.2 kilobits per second X-band rate at Jupiter’s orbit and partially offsets the weakening of the signal at the Saturn orbit. Voyager 1 has sixteen small redundant boosters burning hydrazine and used for both trajectory changes and