by iamlucky13 » Mon Sep 18, 2006 9:04 pm
I don't think there's any question as to whether or not they'll have power to transmit. They're powered by nuclear RTG's that produce steady power for years (~25, I think), before slowly tapering off. The bigger question is will it be strong enough to hear, and even more importantly, will we still be paying people to listen? NASA has recently been seriously discussing concluding the Voyager mission completely due to the cost of the mission staff and scheduling communication times on the relatively small number of very busy radio antennae that are sensitive enough to pick up the signal.
I don't know if communication with the Voyagers is handled by the Deep Space Network antennae or some of the bigger ones, like the Arecibo or Parkes radio telescopes. The latter are only designed to listen, not transmit, and I assume instructions are still needed to tell them when to send back data.
I sure hope we're still listening to them when they reach that point, but I don't know how much value they really offer. It could be that the instruments onboard aren't specific enough (they were designed to survey the solar system, not test the waters of interstellar space) to accomplish anything more than confirm the most obvious bits and pieces of our theories about what's around us.
Still useful: Yes
Worth the cost: I hope so. Just being able to confirm where the heliopause is exactly might tell us a remarkable amount about interstellar space.
I don't think there's any question as to whether or not they'll have power to transmit. They're powered by nuclear RTG's that produce steady power for years (~25, I think), before slowly tapering off. The bigger question is will it be strong enough to hear, and even more importantly, will we still be paying people to listen? NASA has recently been seriously discussing concluding the Voyager mission completely due to the cost of the mission staff and scheduling communication times on the relatively small number of very busy radio antennae that are sensitive enough to pick up the signal.
I don't know if communication with the Voyagers is handled by the Deep Space Network antennae or some of the bigger ones, like the Arecibo or Parkes radio telescopes. The latter are only designed to listen, not transmit, and I assume instructions are still needed to tell them when to send back data.
I sure hope we're still listening to them when they reach that point, but I don't know how much value they really offer. It could be that the instruments onboard aren't specific enough (they were designed to survey the solar system, not test the waters of interstellar space) to accomplish anything more than confirm the most obvious bits and pieces of our theories about what's around us.
Still useful: Yes
Worth the cost: I hope so. Just being able to confirm where the heliopause is exactly might tell us a remarkable amount about interstellar space.