NASA began work on a Grand Tour, which evolved into a massive project involving two groups of two probes each, with one group visiting Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto and the other Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. In the early space age, it was realized that a periodic alignment of the outer planets would occur in the late 1970s and enable a single probe to visit Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune by taking advantage of the then-new technique of gravity assists. įurther information: Grand Tour program Background The DSS 43 communication antenna, which is solely responsible for communications with the probe, is located near Canberra, Australia. As of February 12, 2021, full communications with the probe were restored after a major antenna upgrade that took a year to complete. Contact was reestablished on November 2, 2020, when a series of instructions was transmitted, subsequently executed, and relayed back with a successful communication message.

In 2020, maintenance to the Deep Space Network cut outbound contact with the probe for eight months. Voyager 2 remains in contact with Earth through the NASA Deep Space Network. Voyager 2 has begun to provide the first direct measurements of the density and temperature of the interstellar plasma. Voyager 2 has left the Sun's heliosphere and is traveling through the interstellar medium (ISM), a region of outer space beyond the influence of the Solar System, joining Voyager 1, which had reached the interstellar medium in 2012. The probe crossed into interstellar space on November 5, 2018, at a distance of 122 AU (1.83 ×10 10 km) (about 16:58 light-hours) from the Sun and moving at a velocity of 15.341 km/s (55,230 km/h) relative to the star. The spacecraft is now in its extended mission of studying interstellar space as of September 16, 2021, Voyager 2 has been operating for 44 years, 1 month and 3 days, reaching a distance of 127.75 AU (19.111 billion km 11.875 billion mi) from Earth. Voyager 2 successfully fulfilled its primary mission of visiting the Jovian system in 1979, the Saturnian system in 1981, Uranian system in 1986, and the Neptunian system in 1989. Voyager 2 was the fourth of five spacecraft to achieve the Solar escape velocity, which allowed it to leave the Solar System.

It is the only spacecraft to have visited either of these two ice giant planets. A part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, Voyager 1, on a trajectory that took longer to reach Jupiter and Saturn but enabled further encounters with Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 2 is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere.

Car Radio Code Calculator V2.0