But after a week of obdurate unresponsiveness to all commands, instructions to switch automatically between receivers were accepted and programmed into the skittish onboard computer. During that same week the JPL engineers designed an innovative command frequency control procedure to make sure that essential orders would be understood by the damaged backup receiver.
The engineers were now able to recommunicate, at least in a rudimentary way, with the spacecraft. Unfortunately the backup receiver now turned giddy, becoming extremely sensitive to stray heat dumped when various components of the spacecraft powered up or down. In the following months the JPL engineers devised and conducted tests that let them thoroughly understand the thermal implications of most spacecraft operational modes: What would prevent and what would permit receipt of commands from Earth?
With this information, the backup receiver problem was entirely circumvented. It subsequently acquired all the commands sent from Earth on how to gather data in the Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune systems. The engineers had saved the mission. (To be on the safe side, during most of Voyager 2’s subsequent flight a nominal data-taking sequence for the next planet to be encountered was always sitting in the on-board computers—should the spacecraft again become deaf to entreaties from home.)
Another heart-wrenching failure occurred just after Voyager 2 emerged from behind Saturn (as seen from the Earth) in August 1981. The scan platform had been moving feverishly—pointing here and there among the rings, moons, and the planet itself during the all-too-brief moments of close approach. Suddenly, the platform jammed. A stuck scan platform is a maddening predicament: knowing that the spacecraft is flying past wonders that have never been witnessed, that we will not see again for years or decades, and the incurious spacecraft staring fixedly off into space, ignoring everything.
The scan platform is driven by actuators containing gear trains. So first the JCL engineers ran an identical copy of a flight actuator in a simulated mission. This actuator failed after 348 turns; the actuator on the spacecraft had failed after 352 turns. The problem turned out to be a lubrication failure. Good to know, but what to do about it? Plainly, it would be impossible to overtake Voyager with ail oilcan.
The engineers wondered whether they could restart the tailed actuator by alternate heating and cooling; maybe the resulting thermal stresses would induce the components of the actuator to expand and contract at different rates and unjam the system. They tested this notion with specially manufactured actuators in the laboratory, and then jubilantly found that in this way they could start the scan platform up again in space. Project personnel also devised ways to diagnose any additional trend toward actuator failure early enough to work around the problem. Thereafter, Voyager 2’s scan platform worked perfectly. All the pictures taken in the Uranus and Neptune systems owe their existence to this work. The engineers had saved the day again.
Voyagers 1 and 2 were designed to explore the Jupiter and Saturn systems only. It is true that their trajectories would carry them on past Uranus and Neptune, but officially these planets were never contemplated as targets for Voyager exploration: The spacecraft were not supposed to last that long. Because of our wish to fly close to the mystery world Titan, Voyager 9 was flung by Saturn on a path that could never encounter any other known world; it is Voyager 2 that flew on to Uranus and Neptune with brilliant success. At these immense distances, sunlight is getting progressively dimmer, and the radio signals transmitted to Earth are getting progressively fainter. These were predictable but still very serious problems that the JPL engineers and scientists also had to solve.
Because of the low light levels at Uranus and Neptune, the Voyager television cameras were obliged to take long time exposures. But the spacecraft was hurtling so fast through, say, the Uranus system (at about 35,000 miles per hour) that the image would have been smeared or blurred. To compensate, the entire spacecraft had to be moved during the time exposures to cancel out the motion, like panning in the direction opposite yours while taking a photograph of a street scene from a moving car. This may sound easy, but it’s not: You have to neutralize the most innocent of motions. At zero gravity, the mere start and stop of the on-board tape recorder can jiggle the spacecraft enough to smear the picture.
This problem was solved by sending up commands to the spacecraft’s little rocket engines (called thrusters), machines of exquisite sensitivity. With a little puff of gas at the start and stop of each data-taking sequence, the thrusters compensated for the tape-recorder jiggle by turning the entire spacecraft just a little. To deal with the low radio power received at Earth, the engineers devised a new and more efficient way to record and transmit the data, and the radio telescopes on Earth were electronically linked together with others to increase their sensitivity. Overall, the imaging system worked, by many criteria, better at Uranus and Neptune than it did at Saturn or even at Jupiter.
Voyager may not yet be done exploring. There is, of course, a chance that some vital subsystem will fail tomorrow, but as far as the radioactive decay of the plutonium power source is concerned, the two Voyager spacecraft should be able to return data to Earth roughly through the year 2015.
Voyager is an intelligent being—part robot, part human. It extends the human senses to far-off worlds. For simple tasks and short-term problems, it relies on its own intelligence; but for more complex tasks and longer-term problems, it turns to the collective intelligence and experience of the JPL engineers. This trend is sure to grow. The Voyagers embody the technology of the early 1970s; if spacecraft were designed for such a mission today, they would incorporate stunning advances in artificial intelligence, in miniaturization, in data-processing speed, in the ability to self-diagnose and repair, and in the propensity to learn from experience They would also be much cheaper.
In the many environments too dangerous for people, on Earth as well as in space, the future belongs to robot-human partnerships that will recognize the two Voyagers as antecedents and pioneers. For nuclear accidents, mine disasters, undersea exploration and archaeology, manufacturing, prowling the interiors of volcanos, and household help, to name only a few potential applications, it could make an enormous difference to have a ready corps of smart, mobile, compact, commandable robots that can diagnose and repair their own malfunctions. There are likely to be many more of this tribe in the near future.
It is conventional wisdom now that anything built by the government will be a disaster. But the two Voyager spacecraft were built by the government (in partnership with that other bugaboo, academia). They came in at cost, on time, and vastly exceeded their design specifications—as well as the fondest dreams of their makers. Seeking not to control, threaten, wound, or destroy, these elegant machines represent the exploratory part of our nature set free to roam the Solar System and beyond. This kind of technology, the treasures it uncovers freely available to all humans everywhere, has been, over the last few decades, one of the few activities of the United States admired as much by those who abhor many of its policies as by those who agree with it on every issue. Voyager cost each American less than a penny a year from launch to Neptune encounter. Missions to the planets are one of those things—and I mean this not just for the United States, but for the human species—that we do best.
