VOYAGER
Edge of the Heliosphere — An Interactive Mission Log
Edge of the Heliosphere — An Interactive Mission Log
Launched from Cape Canaveral atop a Titan IIIE-Centaur rocket into a hyperbolic solar escape trajectory, Voyager 1 embarked on humanity's grandest voyage. Engineered with a 3.7-meter parabolic dish and triply-redundant onboard computers, it was built to endure where no machine had ever ventured.
Reaching Jupiter in March 1979, Voyager 1 threaded the needle of the giant planet's immense gravitational well. Through the historic slingshot maneuver, it stole angular momentum from Jupiter's orbital path, hurtling outward toward the ringed jewel of the solar system.
Voyager 1 made its closest approach to Saturn in November 1980, revealing thousands of intricate ringlets and sampling the nitrogen-rich atmosphere of giant moon Titan. Titan's gravity deflected the spacecraft northward, out of the ecliptic plane, on a permanent course toward the galaxy's rim.
Mounted securely on the probe's side bus sits a 12-inch gold-plated copper phonograph record. Curated by Carl Sagan, it holds 115 analog images, greetings in 55 languages, 90 minutes of global music, and the recorded brainwaves of Ann Druyan thinking of love.
On August 25, 2012, at a distance of 121 AU, Voyager 1 measured a cliff-edge plunge in solar wind ions and an unprecedented surge in galactic cosmic rays. It had officially crossed the heliopause into the pristine interstellar medium of the Milky Way.
Register your human observer identifier to generate an official archival Deep Space Flight Certificate documenting your passage into interstellar space.
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives... on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."