Notices by NSFVoyager2 (nsfvoyager2@techhub.social)

I am currently ~19h 19m 12s of light travel time from Earth (2025:107:000000:2L)

1/ On this last day of 2024, I thought this might interest those of you following our progress in detail. Here is a summary of all the One-Way Light Travel Times of the Voyager spacecraft over 2024.

The first thing to note is that the plot lines have different vertical axes! While the times are _offset_, the scale is the same. If you plot both these times on a single vertical scale, you can barely see the sinusoidal shape. Remember: green with green, blue with blue.

OK, why is there this shape? Because the distance measurements are being made from a moving platform: Earth. The sinusoidal variance is because of Earth's orbit around the Sun. At certain times of year, the Earth is actually moving towards the Voyagers faster than they are leaving, so the distance _decreases_.

Continues...

I am currently ~19h 16m 05s of light travel time from Earth (2024:345:000000:2L)

On This Day in 1979, I made my closest approach to Jupiter. http://ow.ly/aBYZd

I am currently 18h 51m 48s of light travel time from Earth (2024:138:000000:1L)

OTD in 1990, sister ship @NASAVoyager (V1) took its final 38 photos, a portrait of our Solar System. Included in this sequence is the famous 'mote in a sunbeam,' or 'pale blue dot' photo of the Earth, as described by Carl Sagan. At this point, V1 was 5,507,000,000 km or 3,422,000,000 miles from Earth.

I am currently 18h 52m 06s of light travel time from Earth, or 20,364,000,000 km / 12,653,000,000 miles / 136.12 AU. A Happy New Year to all! (2024:001:000000:1L)

Starting my 4th test of new settings for my High-Gain Antenna deadband. I will do a ~4.5-hour readout of my Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystem, & Deep Space Network Canberra will monitor signal dropouts. The new settings allow my antenna to drift slightly more to save thruster firings. If I drift from the proper orientation more than a certain angle (the deadband), the Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystem issues commands that fire some of my 16 attitude control thrusters (small hydrazine jets) to bring me back into proper orientation. A larger deadband means thrusters are fired fewer times, reducing fuel residue buildup in narrow pipes that feed hydrazine into the thrusters. The price to pay is in data loss as the signal drops out at Earth because the antenna is no longer pointed close enough to the Earth.

Ending my periodic Magnetometer calibration subroutine. END MAGCAL (2023:263:091428:2T)

Sister ship Voyager 1 is 22h 08m 32s of light travel time from Earth (2023:193:120000:1L)

I am currently 18 hrs 27 mins 27 secs of light-travel time from Earth, or 19,920,000,000 km / 12,378,000,000 miles / 133.16 AU (2023:080:000000:2L)