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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
An artist’s concept depicts one of NASA’s Voyager probes. The twin spacecraft launched in 1977.NASA/JPL-Caltech The farthest-flung human-made objects will be able to take their science-gathering even farther, thanks to these energy-conserving measures.
Mission engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California turned off the cosmic ray subsystem experiment aboard Voyager 1 on Feb. 25 and will shut off Voyager 2’s low-energy charged particle instrument on March 24. Three science instruments will continue to operate on each spacecraft. The moves are part of an ongoing effort to manage the gradually diminishing power supply of the twin probes.
Launched in 1977, Voyagers 1 and 2 rely on a radioisotope power system that generates electricity from the heat of decaying plutonium. Both lose about 4 watts of power each year.
“The Voyagers have been deep space rock stars since launch, and we want to keep it that way as long as possible,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at JPL. “But electrical power is running low. If we don’t turn off an instrument on each Voyager now, they would probably have only a few more months of power before we would need to declare end of mission.”
The two spacecraft carry identical sets of 10 science instruments. Some of the instruments, geared toward collecting data during planetary flybys, were turned off after both spacecraft completed their exploration of the solar system’s gas giants.
The instruments that remained powered on well beyond the last planetary flyby were those the science team considered important for studying the solar system’s heliosphere, a protective bubble of solar wind and magnetic fields created by the Sun, and interstellar space, the region outside the heliosphere. Voyager 1 reached the edge of the heliosphere and the beginning of interstellar space in 2012; Voyager 2 reached the boundary in 2018. No other human-made spacecraft has operated in interstellar space.
Last October, to conserve energy, the project turned off Voyager 2’s plasma science instrument, which measures the amount of plasma — electrically charged atoms — and the direction it is flowing. The instrument had collected only limited data in recent years due to its orientation relative to the direction that plasma flows in interstellar space. Voyager 1’s plasma science instrument had been turned off years ago because of degraded performance.
Interstellar Science Legacy
The cosmic ray subsystem that was shut down on Voyager 1 last week is a suite of three telescopes designed to study cosmic rays, including protons from the galaxy and the Sun, by measuring their energy and flux. Data from those telescopes helped the Voyager science team determine when and where Voyager 1 exited the heliosphere.
Scheduled for deactivation later this month, Voyager 2’s low-energy charged particle instrument measures the various ions, electrons, and cosmic rays originating from our solar system and galaxy. The instrument consists of two subsystems: the low-energy particle telescope for broader energy measurements, and the low-energy magnetospheric particle analyzer for more focused magnetospheric studies.
Both systems use a rotating platform so that the field of view is 360 degrees, and the platform is powered by a stepper motor that provides a 15.7-watt pulse every 192 seconds. The motor was tested to 500,000 steps — enough to guarantee continuous operation through the mission’s encounters with Saturn, which occurred in August 1980 for Voyager 2. By the time it is deactivated on Voyager 2, the motor will have completed more than 8.5 million steps.
“The Voyager spacecraft have far surpassed their original mission to study the outer planets,” said Patrick Koehn, Voyager program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Every bit of additional data we have gathered since then is not only valuable bonus science for heliophysics, but also a testament to the exemplary engineering that has gone into the Voyagers — starting nearly 50 years ago and continuing to this day.”
Addition Through Subtraction
Mission engineers have taken steps to avoid turning off science instruments for as long as possible because the science data collected by the twin Voyager probes is unique. With these two instruments turned off, the Voyagers should have enough power to operate for about a year before the team needs to shut off another instrument on both spacecraft.
In the meantime, Voyager 1 will continue to operate its magnetometer and plasma wave subsystem. The spacecraft’s low-energy charged particle instrument will operate through the remainder of 2025 but will be shut off next year.
Voyager 2 will continue to operate its magnetic field and plasma wave instruments for the foreseeable future. Its cosmic ray subsystem is scheduled to be shut off in 2026.
With the implementation of this power conservation plan, engineers believe the two probes could have enough electricity to continue operating with at least one science instrument into the 2030s. But they are also mindful that the Voyagers have been weathering deep space for 47 years and that unforeseen challenges could shorten that timeline.
Long Distance
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 remain the most distant human-made objects ever built. Voyager 1 is more than 15 billion miles (25 billion kilometers) away. Voyager 2 is over 13 billion miles (21 billion kilometers) from Earth.
In fact, due to this distance, it takes over 23 hours to get a radio signal from Earth to Voyager 1, and 19½ hours to Voyager 2.
“Every minute of every day, the Voyagers explore a region where no spacecraft has gone before,” said Linda Spilker, Voyager project scientist at JPL. “That also means every day could be our last. But that day could also bring another interstellar revelation. So, we’re pulling out all the stops, doing what we can to make sure Voyagers 1 and 2 continue their trailblazing for the maximum time possible.”
For more information about NASA’s Voyager missions, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager
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DC Agle / Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-653-6297 / 626-808-2469
agle@jpl.nasa.gov / calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov
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By NASA
Explore This Section Science Science Activation 2025 Aviation Weather Mission:… Overview Learning Resources Science Activation Teams SME Map Opportunities More Science Activation Stories Citizen Science 2 min read
2025 Aviation Weather Mission: Civil Air Patrol Cadets Help Scientists Study the Atmosphere with GLOBE Clouds
The Science Activation Program’s NASA Earth Science Education Collaborative (NESEC) is working alongside the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) to launch the 2025 Aviation Weather Mission. The mission will engage cadets (students ages 11-20) and senior members to collect aviation-relevant observations including airport conditions, Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Cloud observations, commercial aircraft information (including registration number and altitude), and satellite collocations provided by the NASA GLOBE Clouds team at NASA Langley Research Center. This mission results from a highly successful collaboration between NESEC and CAP as cadets and senior members collected cloud, air temperature, and land cover observations during the partial and total solar eclipses in 2023 and 2024, engaging over 400 teams with over 3,000 cadets and over 1,000 senior members in every state, Washington DC, and Puerto Rico.
The 2025 Aviation Weather Mission will take place from April through July 2025, collecting observations over two 4-hour periods while practicing additional skills, such as flight tracking, orienteering, and data management. So far, over 3,000 cadets in 46 wings (states) have signed up to participate.
Science Activation recently showed support for this mission through a letter of collaboration sent to CAP Major General Regena Aye in early February. NASA GLOBE Clouds and GLOBE Observer are part of the NASA Earth Science Education Collaborative (NESEC), which is led by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) and supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AE28A. NESEC is part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio. Learn more about how Science Activation connects NASA science experts, real content, and experiences with community leaders to do science in ways that activate minds and promote deeper understanding of our world and beyond: https://science.nasa.gov/learn
Cadets from the Virginia wing making cloud observations as they prepare for the 2025 Aviation Weather Mission. Share
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By NASA
Credit: NASA NASA has selected Firefly Aerospace Inc. of Cedar Park, Texas, to provide the launch service for the agency’s Investigation of Convective Updrafts (INCUS) mission, which aims to understand why, when, and where tropical convective storms form, and why some storms produce extreme weather. The mission will launch on the company’s Alpha rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
The selection is part of NASA’s Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) launch services contract. This contract allows the agency to make fixed-price indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity awards during VADR’s five-year ordering period, with a maximum total value of $300 million across all contracts.
The INCUS mission, comprised of three SmallSats flying in tight coordination, will investigate the evolution of the vertical transport of air and water by convective storms. These storms form when rapidly rising water vapor and air create towering clouds capable of producing rain, hail, and lightning. The more air and water that rise, the greater the risk of extreme weather. Convective storms are a primary source of precipitation and cause of the most severe weather on Earth.
Each satellite will have a high frequency precipitation radar that observes rapid changes in convective cloud depth and intensities. One of the three satellites also will carry a microwave radiometer to provide the spatial content of the larger scale weather observed by the radars. By flying so closely together, the satellites will use the slight differences in when they make observations to apply a novel time-differencing approach to estimate the vertical transport of convective mass.
NASA selected the INCUS mission through the agency’s Earth Venture Mission-3 solicitation and Earth System Science Pathfinder program. The principal investigator for INCUS is Susan van den Heever at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Several NASA centers support the mission, including Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Key satellite system components will be provided by Blue Canyon Technologies and Tendeg LLC, both in Colorado. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, manages the VADR contract.
To learn more about NASA’s INCUS mission, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/incus
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Tiernan Doyle
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Patti Bielling
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
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Investigation of Convective Updrafts (INCUS) Earth Science Planetary Science Division Science & Research Science Mission Directorate SmallSats Program Wallops Flight Facility View the full article
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By NASA
On March 3, 1915, the United States Congress created the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Although the NACA’s founding took place just over 11 years after the Wright Brothers’ first powered flightfirst powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Congress took the action in response to America lagging behind other world powers’ advances in aviation and aeronautics. From its modest beginnings as an advisory committee, over the years, the NACA established research centers and test facilities that enabled groundbreaking advances in civilian and military aviation, as well as the fledgling discipline of spaceflight. With the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1958, the new agency incorporated the NACA’s facilities, its employees, and its annual budget. The NACA provided NASA with a strong foundation as it set out to explore space.
The first meeting of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics on April 23, 1915.NASA The NACA executive committee in 1934. NASA The Congressional action that created the NACA, implemented as a rider to the 1915 Naval Appropriations Bill, reads in part, “…It shall be the duty of the advisory committee for aeronautics to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution. …”. In its initial years, the NACA fulfilled its intended role, coordinating activities already in place in the area of aeronautics research, reporting directly to the president. The committee, made up of 12 representatives from government agencies, academia, and the military, first met on April 23 in the Office of the Secretary of War in Washington, D.C. It established a nine-member executive committee to oversee day-to-day operations and spent the first few years establishing its headquarters in Washington.
The committee’s logo, approved in 1941.NASA The committee’s seal, approved by presidential executive order in 1953.NASA
Hangars at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Hampton, Virginia, in 1931. NASA The Variable Density Tunnel at Langley. NASA Aerial view of the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory in Sunnyvale, California, in 1944. NASA Aerial view of the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1945.NASA Within a few years, the NACA’s role began to expand with the establishment of research facilities. The Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, today NASA’s Langley Research Center, in Hampton, Virginia, opened on June 11, 1920. Over the next few decades, Langley served as a testing facility for new types of aircraft, using wind tunnels and other technological advances. The Ames Aeronautical Laboratory in Sunnyvale, California, today NASA’s Ames Research Center, opened in 1940 and the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory in Cleveland, today NASA’s Glenn Research Center, in 1941. The three labs achieved many breakthroughs in civilian and military aviation before, during, and after World War II. The Cleveland lab, renamed the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in 1948, concentrated most of its efforts on advances in jet propulsion.
The NACA High-Speed Flight Station, now NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, at Edwards Air Force Base in California’s Mojave Desert. NASA The Bell X-1, the first aircraft to break the sound barrier in 1947.NASA The first sounding rocket launch from the Pilotless Aircraft Research Station at Wallops Island, Virginia, in 1945.NASA After World War II, the NACA began work on achieving supersonic flight. In 1946, the agency established the Muroc Flight Test Unit at the Air Force’s Muroc Field, later renamed Edwards Air Force Base, in California’s Mojave Desert. In a close collaboration, the NACA, the Air Force, and Bell Aircraft developed the X-1 airplane that first broke the sound barrier in 1947. Muroc Field underwent several name changes, first to the High-Speed Flight Station in 1949, then in 1976 to NASA’s Dryden, and in 2014 to Armstrong Flight Research Center. In 1945, the NACA established the Pilotless Aircraft Research Station on Wallops Island, Virginia, now NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, as a test site for rocketry research, under Langley’s direction. From the first launch in 1945 through 1958, the NACA launched nearly 400 different types of rockets from Wallops.
Shadowgraph of finned hemispherical model in free flight shows shock waves produced by blunt bodies.NACA Meeting of the NACA’s Special Committee on Space Technology in May 1958.NASA In the 1950s, the NACA began to study the feasibility of spaceflight, including sending humans into space. In 1952, NACA engineers developed the concept of a blunt body capsule as the most efficient way to return humans from space. The design concept found its way into the Mercury capsule and all future American spacecraft. Following the dawn of the space age in 1957, the NACA advocated that it take the lead in America’s spaceflight effort. The Congress passed, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation to create a new civilian space agency, and on Oct. 1, 1958, NASA officially began operations. The new organization incorporated the NACA’s research laboratories and test facilities, its 8,000 employees, and its $100 million annual budget. Many of NASA’s key early leaders and engineers began their careers in the NACA. The NACA’s last director, Hugh Dryden, served as NASA’s first deputy administrator.
For more information about the NACA and its transition to NASA, read former NASA Chief Historian Roger Launius’ book NASA to NASA to Now: The Frontiers of Air and Space in the American Century. Watch this video narrated by former NASA Chief Historian Bill Barry about the NACA.
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