The high-gain antenna has a beamwidth of 0.5° for X-band, and 2.3° for S-band.: 17 (The low-gain antenna has a 7 dB gain and 60° beamwidth.): 17īecause of the inverse-square law in radio communications, the digital data rates used in the downlinks from the Voyagers have been continually decreasing the farther that they get from the Earth. All long-range communications to and from the two Voyagers have been carried out using their 3.7-meter (12 ft) high-gain antennas. The downlink communications are carried out by an X-band microwave transmitter on board the spacecraft, with an S-band transmitter as a back-up. “The uplink communications are executed via S-band microwave communications. NASA’s twin Voyager probes have become, in many ways, time capsules of their era: They each carry an eight-track tape player for recording data, they transmit data about 38,000 times slower than a 5G internet connection, and they have about 3 million times less memory than modern cellphones.

Researchers – some younger than the spacecraft – are now using Voyager data to solve mysteries of our solar system and beyond. Their journey continues 45 years later as both probes explore interstellar space, the region outside the protective heliosphere created by our Sun. Launched in 1977, NASA’s twin Voyager spacecraft inspired the world with pioneering visits to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Launched in 1977, the twin Voyager probes are NASA’s longest-operating mission and the only spacecraft ever to explore interstellar space. The Planetary Radio instrument also used these antennas when it was turned on. The two long thin rods extending out to the left are antennas used by the Plasma Wave instrument. The radio isotope thermoelectric generators, Voyager’s power source, are visible to the lower left.

The magnetometer boom stretches out to the upper left. The dish is the spacecraft’s high-gain antenna for communications with Earth. The Golden Record, containing images and sounds from Earth, is the yellow circle on the main spacecraft body. The bright gray square is an optical calibration plate for the instruments. On the boom to the right, the Cosmic Ray Science instrument, Low Energy Charged Particle detector, the Infrared Spectrometer and Radiometer, Ultraviolet Spectrometer, Photopolarimeter and Wide and Narrow Angle Cameras are visible. This artist’s rendering shows NASA’s Voyager spacecraft.

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