Sondas espaciais Voyager 1 e 2
I still barely knew how to talk and walk, NASA launched two space probes that gave us so much information and knowledge about our Solar System. The history of these two probes, as well as all current information received from them, can be found on the page Voyager (nasa.gov) .
Being such an important project, and for which I have great affection, I carried out another personal project, within the scope of 3D printing, which was to print a replica of these two probes.
This was my project completely done by me, from the printing to the painting of the model, which was a big step forward for me!
Below you can see a short video with part of the construction of my model and, at the end, you can find a summary of the Voyager project. Hope you like it....
NASA, the US space agency, in the late 1970s, launched two space probes: Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.
The Voyager 1 was launched into space on September 5, 1977 with the aim of studying the planets Jupiter and Saturn and then proceeding to interstellar space. On March 20, 2022, it reached the service life of 44 years, 6 months and 15 days in operation, receiving routine commands and continuously transmitting data to Earth. The probe was the first to enter interstellar space, information officially confirmed by NASA on September 12, 2013.
As part of the Voyager program, which foresaw the development of two interplanetary exploration probes (Voyager 1 and 2), it aimed to carry out a space "Grand Tour", taking advantage of the favorable positioning of the gas giants of the Solar System. Originally, the Grand Tour was designed to allow visits to Jupiter and Saturn only. However, the Voyager 2 spacecraft had its mission extended and visited Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 1's initial and primary mission ended on November 20, 1980 after its encounter with the Jovian system in 1979 and the Saturn system in 1980.
Voyager 2, the sister probe of Voyager 1, took place on August 20, 1977. As predicted, it passed close to the four giant planets of the Solar System (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune), producing very valuable scientific results and the best photographs. of those bodies and their satellites obtained so far. It became the fourth human artifact to pass Pluto's orbit in 1989, and in 2005 it was at a distance of about 75 AUs from Earth.
These probes used a navigation aid technique that uses the gravitational pull of the planets they are approaching. This technique allows the probes to receive an acceleration and a change of direction in order to be placed in a new direction that takes them to a new destination. In this way, the probes can be built lighter (they don't need as much fuel for acceleration and changes of direction), but it implies a great precision in the approaches to the planets to be visited.
The Voyager 2 spacecraft approached Jupiter on July 9, 1979, at a distance of 570,000 kilometers. She discovered some rings around Jupiter, as well as volcanic activity on the moon Io. Discovered new small satellites, Adrastea and Metis, Thebe, was discovered between the orbits of Amalthea and Io.
The spacecraft then visited Saturn on January 25, 1981, at a distance of 101,000 kilometers from the planet's surface. He then visited Uranus on January 24, 1986. One of the novelties was the discovery of 11 natural satellites (Cordelia, Ofelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalinda, Belinda, Perdita and Puck) and a ring around Uranus. The South Pole of Uranus was also found to be pointed directly at the sun.
After visiting Uranus, the probe headed towards Neptune, until it arrived there in August 1989, also going so far as to survey its natural satellite Triton.
After passing through Pluto's orbit, Voyager 2 began its exit from the Solar System.
The probe has, attached to its external part, a phonographic disc made of gold entitled "Sounds of the Earth", with 1h30min of music and some sounds of the nature of planet Earth. The disc has instructions for use and the phrase "For makers of music of all worlds and all times". The purpose of this disk is to take data from Earth to a possible outer civilization.
In May 2010, the spacecraft reached a distance of 92 AU from the Sun, at a speed of 3.3 AU per year (15.4 km/s), located in the constellation Telescope. It is predicted that after 2030, the spacecraft will lose contact with Earth.
In 2020 Voyager 2 is in interstellar space, more than 13.5 billion kilometers from Earth (Pluto is at an average distance of about 6 billion kilometers from the Sun). In November 2020, NASA regained communications with the spacecraft, following improvements made to the Deep Space Station 43 antenna in Australia, which is the only one capable of communicating with the spacecraft. Communications have been suspended since the antenna began repair and upgrade work in March 2020.[4]
Voyager 2, more than 18.7 billion kilometers away from Earth and getting farther and farther away, however, was able to receive any communication from Earth. Voyager 2 returned after 17 hours and 24 min a signal confirming that it had received the instructions and executed the commands without issuing on October 30, 2020.
Source: Voyager (nasa.gov)