The Voyagers were also not designed with this performance in mind, and their planned lifespan was 5 years.

They were primarily intended to study plants:

– Voyager 1: flyby of Jupiter and Saturn, and then possibly to Titan (Saturn’s moon)
– Voyager 2: Also a flyby of Jupiter and Saturn, but with the option to continue to Neptune and Uranus, or as a backup mission to Titan (Saturn’s moon), if Voyager 1 cannot arrive.

To accomplish their two-planet mission, The spacecraft was built to last five years. But as the mission continued, and with all its goals successfully achieved, additional flybys of the two outer giant planets, Uranus and Neptune, proved possible — and irresistible to the mission scientists and engineers at Voyager’s home in the plane. Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

be seen https://voyager.jpl.nasa….ked-questions/fact-sheet/

This is also the reason why Voyager 2 followed a completely different path than Voyager 1, because Voyager 2 also visited Uranus and Neptune, which Voyager 1 did not do.

Both missions were not originally planned, but eventually came about due to budget cuts NASA was forced to make. What we now know as Voyager 1 and 2 was actually intended to be Mariner 11 and Mariner 12 from Mariner Program.

Initially, Voyager 1 was planned to be Mariner 11 of the Mariner program. Due to budget cuts, the mission was reduced to a flyby of Jupiter and Saturn and renamed the Mariner Jupiter-Saturn Probe. The name was changed to Voyager when the probe’s designs began to differ significantly from the Mariner missions

be seen Wikipedia: Voyager 1

[Reactie gewijzigd door wildhagen op 16 juni 2024 11:00]