Distant Voyager’s new orders

Press, 26 February 1986, Page 10

Distant Voyager’s new orders

NZPA-AP Pasadena United States space agency engineers have sent new orders to the Voyager 2 spacecraft as they prepare to end the probe’s distant exploration of Uranus and guide it towards its Neptune flypast in 1989. The orders, radioed 2.9 billion km to the space-

craft on Monday, went into action yesterday, ending the pbst-encounter phase of Voyager’s Uranus studies and starting the cruise phase of its flight to Neptune, said George Textor, mission director at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California. “Most of the remaining sensors that are on will be

turned off,” he said. Although Voyager’s two television cameras had been shut down, “We will be taking some more pictures (of Uranus), but it won’t be for a while.”

The new orders, basically a computer program, will control Voyager’s actions for the next six weeks. Another 25 pro-

grams will be periodically transmitted to the probe until it begins the observatory phase of its Neptune exploration in May, 1989, Mr Textor said.

On February 14, engineers fired Voyager’s thrusters for 222y 2 hours in a course correction that will bring the probe closest to Neptune on August 25, 1989.