Principal Investigator John Richardson
Co-investigators John Belcher , Leslie Finck
Project Website http://space-dev.mit.edu/instrumentation/voyager
The Voyager spacecraft were launched in 1977 and carry Faraday Cups built at MIT. Voyager 1 encountered Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980 and continues toward the interstellar medium, although the MIT experiment ceased working shortly after the Saturn encounter. Voyager 2 encountered Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1981, Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989, completing the grand tour of the solar system. The MIT experiment is still returning data from over 100 AU, 14 light-hours away, and will make the first plasma measurements of the interstellar medium.
The Voyager mission continues its quest to push the bounds of space exploration. The twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft opened new vistas in space by greatly expanding our knowledge of Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 2 then extended the planetary adventure when it flew by Uranus and Neptune, becoming the only spacecraft ever to visit these worlds.
Voyager 1, now the most distant human-made object in the universe, and Voyager 2, close on its heels, continue their ground-breaking journey with their current mission to study the region in space where the Sun's influence ends and the dark recesses of interstellar space begin.
As of 15 November 2002, Voyager 2 was 6.423 billion miles from Earth (68.45 Astronomical Units from the Sun), well beyond the orbit of Pluto. Voyager 2 is leaving the solar system at 36,000 miles per hour, which is 3.2 AU per year, or 1 light year per 18,600 years.
On the same date, the light travel time from Voyager 2 to Earth was 9 hours, 35 minutes, 43 seconds. Data are returned from the spacecraft at 160 bits per second, using a transmitter with about 25 watts (!) of power.