5 ms·

sorry, i just have a silly question: what would it take to send new probes out there? voyager 3 and 4 for example to follow the same path (more or less, sans pl

sorry, i just have a silly question: what would it take to send new probes out there? voyager 3 and 4 for example to follow the same path (more or less, sans planet alignment) V1 and V2 followed, but with better hardware of course.

Rinzler89 2y ago
You can't. Voyager's launch date coincided with a planetary alignment allowing for gravitational slingshotting out of our galaxy. We have to wait for the next alignment.
- cbhl 2y ago
  If you only want to get a gravity boost from Jupiter and Saturn (like V1) I wonder if you wouldn't have to wait as long, say, every 20 years instead of every 176? https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/timeline/#event-a-once-in-a-lifetime-alignment https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/timeline/#event-a-once-... But you'd still have to fly for ~40 years to get to where they are now, and they'll keep on flying during those 40 years.
  - skykooler 2y ago
    You don't even need to fly by Saturn - New Horizons only used a Jupiter gravity assist, and those are available about once a year.
- layer8 2y ago
  I think you mean solar system.
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pkaye 2y ago
Mostly need money to fund them. There are various proposals in US/EU/China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_probe#Proposed_missions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_probe#Proposed_mi...
floxy 2y ago
If you just want to fling something out there fast, I think this is a pretty cool way to do it: https://youtu.be/NQFqDKRAROI?si=28yrQW8B2IfbGvqj&t=883 https://youtu.be/NQFqDKRAROI?si=28yrQW8B2IfbGvqj&t=883
vikingerik 2y ago
There's basically no point scientifically for doing the four-planet flyby again. Since Voyager, we've already done much better at Jupiter and Saturn with years-long orbiter missions. A quick flyby wouldn't get us anything we don't already know at those. Voyager gets the mindshare because it was first and the four-way slingshot is fun to visualize, but the reality is that Galileo and Cassini and Juno delivered thousands of times more data. We could use more investigation at Uranus and Neptune, but we'd get much more out of extended orbiter missions to those rather than another quick flyby. A Uranus orbiter is currently one of the higher priority missions in planning, and there's a launch window for a Jupiter-Uranus slingshot in 2034 or 2035. (What I wonder is, how much planning do these things need? Why can't we just launch another copy of Cassini to Uranus and skip all the expensive design? You'd need some changes to antennas and power supply for a more distant planet, but the scientific instruments and computing platform should just be reusable designs.)
- wongarsu 2y ago
  Going out further than Voyager might be interesting just for studying the conditions outside the inner solar system. Though I'm not sure how much there is to observe unless you go an order of magnitude faster than Voyager to try to reach the oort cloud
  - vikingerik 2y ago
    There are proposals for this, here's one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_Probe_(spacecraft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_Probe_(spacecraft...
dotnet00 2y ago
If you mean just to beat them on distance, we could probably launch something capable of it in a decade or two by getting more serious about nuclear propulsion and using some slingshots to pick up speed further.
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Rinzler89 2y ago

You can't. Voyager's launch date coincided with a planetary alignment allowing for gravitational slingshotting out of our galaxy. We have to wait for the next alignment.

cbhl 2y ago
If you only want to get a gravity boost from Jupiter and Saturn (like V1) I wonder if you wouldn't have to wait as long, say, every 20 years instead of every 176? https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/timeline/#event-a-once-in-a-lifetime-alignment https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/timeline/#event-a-once-... But you'd still have to fly for ~40 years to get to where they are now, and they'll keep on flying during those 40 years.
- skykooler 2y ago
  You don't even need to fly by Saturn - New Horizons only used a Jupiter gravity assist, and those are available about once a year.
layer8 2y ago
I think you mean solar system.
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pkaye 2y ago

Mostly need money to fund them. There are various proposals in US/EU/China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_probe#Proposed_missions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_probe#Proposed_mi...

floxy 2y ago

If you just want to fling something out there fast, I think this is a pretty cool way to do it: https://youtu.be/NQFqDKRAROI?si=28yrQW8B2IfbGvqj&t=883 https://youtu.be/NQFqDKRAROI?si=28yrQW8B2IfbGvqj&t=883

vikingerik 2y ago

There's basically no point scientifically for doing the four-planet flyby again. Since Voyager, we've already done much better at Jupiter and Saturn with years-long orbiter missions. A quick flyby wouldn't get us anything we don't already know at those. Voyager gets the mindshare because it was first and the four-way slingshot is fun to visualize, but the reality is that Galileo and Cassini and Juno delivered thousands of times more data. We could use more investigation at Uranus and Neptune, but we'd get much more out of extended orbiter missions to those rather than another quick flyby. A Uranus orbiter is currently one of the higher priority missions in planning, and there's a launch window for a Jupiter-Uranus slingshot in 2034 or 2035. (What I wonder is, how much planning do these things need? Why can't we just launch another copy of Cassini to Uranus and skip all the expensive design? You'd need some changes to antennas and power supply for a more distant planet, but the scientific instruments and computing platform should just be reusable designs.)

wongarsu 2y ago
Going out further than Voyager might be interesting just for studying the conditions outside the inner solar system. Though I'm not sure how much there is to observe unless you go an order of magnitude faster than Voyager to try to reach the oort cloud
- vikingerik 2y ago
  There are proposals for this, here's one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_Probe_(spacecraft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_Probe_(spacecraft...

dotnet00 2y ago

If you mean just to beat them on distance, we could probably launch something capable of it in a decade or two by getting more serious about nuclear propulsion and using some slingshots to pick up speed further.

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