The Voyager to the unknown:
In 1977 NASA started one of its most ambitious missions. Voyager 1 and 2 were the first of their kind to attempt a mission of this magnitude. Voyager would go down in the history books as one of the greatest mission of the 20th century.
August 20, 1977, Voyager 2 was hurled through space on top of a Titan IIIE rocket. A bright shiny spacecraft set to explore the unknown worlds in its path. The Voyager was the first mission of its kind. The Voyagers were designed to take advantage of a rare planetary aliment that only occurs once about every 175 years (“Planetary Voyage”). This made it so that the Voyagers could fly from one planet to another without needing a large propulsion unit (“Planetary Voyage”). The way that this would be done is with gravity assist, which was first demonstrated on Mariner 10 in 1973/1974(“Planetary Voyage”). This gravity assist reduces the flight time to Neptune from 30 years to only 12 (“Planetary Voyage”). Due to this…show more content… The mission was renamed the Voyager Interstellar Mission (Voyager 2 - In Depth). This mission has been going on sense after the flyby and is expected to last until the spacecraft runs out of power in ruffle 2025 (Voyager 2 - In Depth). Voyager will need to begin shutting down instruments starting in 2020 (Voyager 2 - In Depth). Sometime in, or shortly after 2025 Voyager will no longer be able to power even one instrument. (Voyager 2 - In Depth). Voyager will then continue its journey into the cosmos in silence. (Voyager 2 - In Depth). When Ed Stone, the Voyager project scientist, was asked what his most meaningful moment was of the mission, he said, “For me, the highlights of Voyager were clearly the planetary encounters. All six of them were wonderful experiences where every day we saw and learned new things. We had a lifetime of discovery packed into each one.” (qtd. in
