1
00:00:00,400 --> 00:00:03,202
[ ♪ ]

2
00:00:03,235 --> 00:00:05,938
40 years ago

3
00:00:05,971 --> 00:00:08,941
[ ♪ and machine sounds ]]

4
00:00:14,213 --> 00:00:17,183
Two Voyagers began an odyssey

5
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Mission Control: 3-2-1-

6
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We have ignition,
and we have liftoff!

7
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[ rockets firing ]

8
00:00:29,595 --> 00:00:31,898
We have liftoff of
the Titan Centaur

9
00:00:31,931 --> 00:00:34,367
carrying the first of
two Voyager spacecraft

10
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to extend man's senses farther
into the solar system

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than ever before.

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Deep Space Network Control Room

13
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The "dark room" is the
"Center of the Universe."

14
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It's where we communicate with

15
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the deepest spacecraft
we have out.

16
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Suzanne Dodd, Voyager
Project Manager:

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We still communicate
with the Voyagers.

18
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They send us signals every day.

19
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You can see Voyager
2 is being tracked

20
00:01:00,759 --> 00:01:03,729
both by Antenna 35
and Antenna 36.

21
00:01:07,700 --> 00:01:10,670
Voyager has been a real
mission of discovery.

22
00:01:11,938 --> 00:01:15,508
Every planet we flew by, we got
more questions than answers.

23
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Ed Stone, Voyager
Project Scientist:

24
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I think none of us knew when
we launched 40 years ago

25
00:01:19,745 --> 00:01:21,747
that anything would be working
for such a wonderful

26
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long journey.

27
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We had hoped that we could
reach interstellar space.

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[ ♪ ]

29
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We reached that with Voyager 1.

30
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And we're about to reach it
with Voyager 2.

31
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[ ♪ ]

32
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Voyager 1 is the further
of the two spacecraft.

33
00:01:51,777 --> 00:01:56,149
And it's currently at about
13 billion miles from us

34
00:01:56,182 --> 00:01:58,918
here on Earth.

35
00:02:00,686 --> 00:02:03,656
The transmitters on
the Voyager spacecraft

36
00:02:03,689 --> 00:02:06,759
are slightly over 20 watts--

37
00:02:06,792 --> 00:02:09,996
about what your refrigerator
light bulb would give off.

38
00:02:11,497 --> 00:02:15,968
So when the signal crosses
that vast distance to us,

39
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the strength of the signal

40
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is one ten-trillionth of
a billionth of a watt

41
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--which is the equivalent of
one divided by 10

42
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with 21 zeroes after it.

43
00:02:31,350 --> 00:02:33,186
A real opportunity on
Voyager 2, of course, is

44
00:02:33,219 --> 00:02:35,788
because we have a working
solar wind instrument

45
00:02:35,821 --> 00:02:37,456
to measure the
solar wind itself,

46
00:02:37,489 --> 00:02:42,228
it's currently measuring the
solar wind inside the bubble.

47
00:02:42,261 --> 00:02:44,497
When it leaves the bubble
it will then enter

48
00:02:44,530 --> 00:02:47,533
interstellar space where there's
an interstellar wind.

49
00:02:47,566 --> 00:02:50,269
which has come from
other stars that blew up.

50
00:02:50,302 --> 00:02:52,638
And so we will have a chance
with that instrument

51
00:02:52,671 --> 00:02:55,775
to actually measure the wind
for the first time directly.

52
00:02:57,376 --> 00:02:58,811
The wonderful thing
about the journey is

53
00:02:58,844 --> 00:03:01,414
not just that it's
40 years long,

54
00:03:01,447 --> 00:03:03,649
but, in fact, it's still
discovering new things

55
00:03:03,682 --> 00:03:06,619
because it's going where
nothing has been before.

56
00:03:08,354 --> 00:03:11,824
They will continue until
they finally run out of power

57
00:03:11,857 --> 00:03:14,994
but they will orbit at the
center of the Milky Way galaxy.

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00:03:16,062 --> 00:03:19,498
For billions of years, our
silent ambassadors.

59
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NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory