Voyager 1 will reach a new space milestone after 50 years of flight
On November 18, Voyager 1 will be the first spacecraft at a distance of light-days from Earth - almost 26 billion km, according to NASA. The signal will go 24 hours, and the answer will be the same. The probe continues the mission started in 1977
Next week, the spacecraft “Voyager-1” the first man-made object will reach a distance of one light-day from Earth – about 25.9 billion km. This will happen on November 18 at 13:16:07 MSK, according to NASA.
Daylight is the distance that light travels in 24 hours. It takes the same amount of time for a radio signal to get from Earth to the spacecraft. Getting a response will take another day.
"You send a message and then go home and wait two days before you finally get a response," explained Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd.
Reaching this mark will not change the conditions around the probe or the operation of its systems, NASA writes, noting that the significance of the milestone is in demonstrating the scale of cosmic distances and the duration of the spacecraft.
Voyager 1 launched on September 5, 1977. He explored Jupiter and Saturn, then continued to fly to the outer limits of the heliosphere — a region filled with particles and magnetic fields of the Sun.
In 2012, the probe entered interstellar space. In 2018 it was followed by Voyager 2. They remain the only spacecraft that directly explore space beyond the heliosphere. According to NASA calculations, the second probe will reach a distance of light-day from Earth in November 2035.
The duration of the mission limits the declining power supply. The devices receive electricity from radioisotope thermoelectric generators using the decay heat of plutonium. Every year, the available power of each probe decreases by about 4 watts, so engineers have to turn off some of the equipment.
In September, Voyager 1 completed an energy-saving operation, remotely shutting down three devices and turning on less energy-intensive alternatives. This allowed to reduce electricity consumption, preserving the necessary heating of the device, and extend the work of scientific instruments, said the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA.
To the upcoming record, NASA proposed to hold a symbolic action: after sunset on November 17, residents of different countries will be able to use phones and lanterns to convey the designation of the device in Morse code - VGR, creating a "wave of golden light" around the planet.
