dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (07/24/85)
The giant outer planets are now arranged in such a way that one spacecraft can visit them all. More -- after this. July 24 Six Months to Uranus The spacecraft called Voyager 2 was launched in August of 1977. Its sister craft, Voyager 1, was launched less than a month later. These two craft visited the gas giant worlds Jupiter and Saturn. They sent back the first-ever detailed pictures of these worlds and their moons. Now Voyager 2 is on its way to a third gas giant in our solar system -- Uranus. It's due to be closest to Uranus exactly six months from today -- on January 24, 1986. The decision was made to send Voyager 2 on to Uranus only after Voyager 1 had been to Saturn. Mission planners decided that, if Voyager 1 accomplished its own major objectives at Saturn, then Voyager 2 would be placed in a trajectory that would send it on toward Uranus after Saturn. If all goes well at Uranus, then Voyager 2 may be sent on toward a fourth gas giant, Neptune -- for a possible encounter in 1989. It's feasible now to send a single spacecraft past the four gas giant worlds in our solar system because all four are now moving in orbit more or less on one side of the sun. That's not always the case. Sometimes the four giant worlds are in widely separate parts of the solar system. But at the moment they're not -- and Voyager 2 required only a year-and-a-half to get to Jupiter -- and two-and-a-half past that to reach Saturn. Four-and-a-half years out from Saturn Voyager 2 will reach Uranus -- exactly one-half year from today. Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin