4 ms·
While the rotation of the earth is one of the primary reasons for the spacing, the hemisphere does matter for Voyager. From the article: "As Voyager 2 is headin
by dr_orpheus 6y ago
While the rotation of the earth is one of the primary reasons for the spacing, the hemisphere does matter for Voyager. From the article: "As Voyager 2 is heading southwards compared to Earth's orbital plane, only a dish south of the equator can send the probe a sufficiently powerful signal."
- Denvercoder9 6y agoTrue, but that's mostly an issue because the construction of the antennas have a minimum elevation limit.
- dr_orpheus 6y agoNot necessarily, Voyager 2 is pretty far angled below the ecliptic plane by 48 degrees [1]. If you were to point the Goldstone dish (35 degree N latitude) directly at the horizon you can reach as far as ~78 degrees below the ecliptic plane if you are pointing in the direction of the tilt of the earth (I don't actually know where Voyager is relative to the tilt of the Earth). If it were in the opposite direction, pointing the antenna at the horizon means you could only point at something ~32 degrees below the ecliptic. And Madrid has a slightly higher latitude at 40 deg N. [1] https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/frequently-asked-questions/fact-sheet/ https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/frequently-asked-questions/fact...