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Record-Breaking Voyager Spacecraft Begin to Power Down

• Stratoscope 4y ago
  > Congress eventually approved a scaled-down version of the Grand Tour, initially called Mariner Jupiter-Saturn 1977, or MJS 77. Two spacecraft were to be sent to just two planets. Nevertheless, NASA's engineers went about designing, somewhat surreptitiously, vehicles capable of withstanding the rigors of a much longer mission. They hoped that once the twin probes proved themselves, their itinerary would be extended to Uranus, Neptune, and beyond. > “Four years—that was the prime mission,” says Suzanne Dodd, who, after a 20-year hiatus from the Voyager team, returned in 2010 as the project manager. “But if an engineer had a choice to put in a part that was 10 percent more expensive but wasn't something that was needed for a four-year mission, they just went ahead and did that. And they wouldn't necessarily tell management.” The fact that the scientists were able to build two spacecraft, and that both are still working, is even more remarkable, she adds.