Voyager satellites are coming to the end of the road

Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, which have been shown as one of the most important achievements in the history of humanity and have achieved the title of spacecraft that have managed to go the farthest distance in space, are now slowly about to complete their lives.

The Voyager saga is coming to an end

Originally, the Voyager spacecraft was thought to operate for only 4 years, but despite having very old technologies, they have been traveling in space for about 45 years. However, the resources used now began to decrease.

The USA, which entered into a race in space with the Soviet Union, was looking for ways to send satellites much more efficiently and to farther points in space. University of California doctoral student Gary Flandro had signed an event that would perhaps change history with an interesting technique.

Flandro, who theorized that satellites could launch themselves like slingshots by taking power from planets’ gravity, however, said that the meeting of planets in a certain plane happened once in 176 years, and mid-1970 was the best period for this. This would cut the travel time in half.

Since technology was limited at that time, two satellites were designed and worked as backups of each other. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were designed very similarly, they were launched into space 15 days apart. A third Voyager was prepared for testing.

Spacecraft with only 60kb of memory were recording on 8-layer tapes and transmitting with 23W transmitters. The Voyager series, which made unexpected discoveries over a 45-year period, is now outside the Solar system. But they can’t afford any more.

Voyager vehicles work by converting the heat released by the radioactive decay of plutonium into energy. However, as the energy supply was constantly decreasing, technicians began to turn off certain functions. While 5 functions remain in the Voyager 2 vehicle, 4 functions work in the Voyager 1 vehicle. Normally, they went on a journey with 10 functions. Vehicles are expected to work until at least 2030, and turning off functions will work in that respect.