http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/calendar/
Aug 16 - Voyager 1 Reaches 100 AU From The Sun

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http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html
Voyager
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/fastfacts.html
Fast Facts
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/fastfacts.html
2005 Proposal
3.8 MB PDF file - See snip below from page 29 and 30 - LRK -
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Some comments about.
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address
=228x22763
muriel_volestrangler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Tue Aug-08-06
10:17 AM
Original message
In praise of ... the Voyager space probe (reaches 100 AU next week)
Editorial in The Guardian:
Their mission began almost 30 years ago, a 1960s dream realised with 1970s technology, aimed at the giant planets. Voyager 1 and 2 have sped past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. They provided the first close view of the rings of Saturn, winter on Uranus, the frozen ocean and awesome sulphur volcanos on Jupiter's Galilean moons Europa and Io, as well as showing us Titan's choking atmosphere. And they went on.
Next week the first of these amazing little spacecraft will pass an astronomical milestone: Voyager 1 will be 15 billion kilometres (9.3bn
miles) from the sun. That is equivalent to a distance of 100 astronomical units (AU), or 100 times as far from the sun as the sun is from the Earth.
The term AU has almost no useful meaning for earthbound travellers. But it is the standard yardstick for the unimaginable distances to the last outposts of the empire of the sun, and Voyager 1, heading away at 17km a second (38,250mph to British motorists), is about to notch its first century.
...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,1839454,00.html
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Funding for listening to the Voyagers is a problem. - LRK -

[2005 - LRK -]
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http://www.planetary.org/news/2005/0524_Voyager_1_Enters_Final_Frontier_of.h
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Voyager 1 Enters Final Frontier of Solar System as NASA Considers Termination.
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http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/309/5731/37
cience 1 July 2005:
Vol. 309. no. 5731, p. 37
DOI: 10.1126/science.309.5731.37
News of the Week
2006 BUDGET:
Can Congress Save NASA Science?
Andrew Lawler
In a remarkable show of bipartisan concern, U.S. lawmakers have ordered NASA not to sacrifice research programs to pay for President George W. Bush's vision of humans on the moon and eventually Mars. But at the same time, they may have compounded NASA's problems by giving a tentative green light to Bush's plans while providing little relief for an impending budget crunch in science.
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And the debate goes on,
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http://www.times-news.com/opinion/local_story_211111106.html?keyword=seconda
rystory
Published: July 30, 2006 11:11 am print this story email this story
Faceoff: Man or robots in space?
Times-News staffers Dave Boden and Richard Kerns debate an issue of interest to our readers. (Opinions expressed by the two are not necessarily those of the Times-News.)
This week's topic:
The Space Debate
Two years ago, President Bush unveiled a new vision for space exploration based on: completing construction of the International Space Station by 2010; designing a new manned space vehicle to replace the Space Shuttle by 2014; and mounting a return trip to the moon by 2020. A lunar base would then be developed as a launching pad for further exploration, including an eventual manned trip to Mars.
Subsequent NASA budgets have been geared to those goals.
"We do not know where this journey will end," the president said in announcing his Vision for Space Exploration program, "yet we know this:
Human beings are headed into the cosmos."
However, critics in the scientific community say the focus on large, manned "flagship" missions is undermining funding support for robotic exploration and other research-oriented projects.
While the Bush administration has proposed a 3.2 percent increase in NASA's budget for fiscal 2007, to $16.8 billion, funding for science programs will be cut by $3.1 billion from 2006-2010, as a result of the new priorities.
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Are we listening? For how long?
Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg
Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsltr.: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
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http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/Proposal-2005/VgrProp05.pdf
Page 29 - 30
Snip
Science Management
The Project Scientist coordinates with the Voyager Science Investigators, the science community, and other elements of the Project to ensure that the Project scientific objectives are met. The Science Steering Group (SSG) is chaired by the Project Scientist and consists of the Principal Investigators for the funded investigations. The SSG has the leading role in the overall optimization of the science return from the mission, and in resolution of conflicting science requirements. Members of the VIM Science Steering Group (the principal investigators) and their co-investigators are listed in Table 2.
Although funding for UVS and PRA has been discontinued by NASA, both data types are still being received. The UV data are made available to Jay Holberg at the University of Arizona, and the PRA data to Michael Kaiser at GSFC.

The principal investigators are responsible for analyzing their data and reporting their findings in a timely manner. They participate, as appropriate, in making these results available to the science community and to the general public. They present their results at science conferences, through news releases and via publications in the popular press and scientific journals. More than 160 refereed and non-refereed papers have been published since 2003. A list of published papers, by investigation, is available at http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/science/bibliography.html
The principal investigators provide archival data to the National Space Science Data Center at Goddard. Since 2003 through July 2005, there were nearly 42,000 accesses to the archived data. Archived data can be accessed via the NSSDC Master Catalog at the following URLs:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/tmp/1977-084A.html
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/tmp/1977-076A.html
A summary of data availability is accessible at the Sun-Earth Connection Data Availability Catalog at http://spdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/SPD/SPDTopMatrixNASA.pl
In addition, a list of URL's, which point to science data, including those at the investigators' home institutions, is located at the JPL Voyager web site at http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/science/Voyager_Science_Data.html
Budget
Since the beginning of the Voyager Interstellar Mission, the project has continually adapted its operations concept and workforce in response to changes in funding levels. The project has undergone a continual transition from multiple specialized teams to a single operations team wherein each member performs multiple interdisciplinary functions. New, internally developed processes and efficiency enhancements have made this possible. In 2002-2003, the flight team was further reduced due to budget constraints. As a result, the current flight team consists of about 8 full-time equivalents.
An independent review by an advisory group convened by the Director for Astronomy and Physics at JPL concluded that workforce below this level would result in unacceptable risks. This was based on the fact that the current budget level allows for only minimal spacecraft monitoring, immediate response to anomalies, a minimal degree of health reassessment, sequence augmentation and no training.
Concurrent to the reductions in the flight team in 2002 were reductions in the level of funding for science data processing, analysis and archiving.
Because of the minimum level of funding, there has been a reduction in the number of graduate students and postdocs supporting the project, and the co-investigators are now performing much of the data processing and validation.
The guideline budget would have continued operations at the current minimum level, including costs to support the minimum flight team described above and a low level of project management support. The guideline budget includes costs for science center functions related to operating the instruments and performing quick-look data processing. Also included are limited science analyses required to ensure proper instrument operations and the validity of the data before they are archived. Science data analysis funds allow for limited science analysis and the publication and presentation of select papers, primarily of major science events.
However, because of growths in full-cost accounting at GSFC and new direct tailored services costs at JPL, the guideline budget, beginning in 2007, is deficient by about $400K per year. To meet the guidelines, operations would have to reduce by 1.0 FTE. There is no easy reduction, since the loss of any person means the loss of multiple functions. Though there would be a severe impact, a lesser impact would entail the loss of the ability to perform AACS trend analyses and currently ongoing analyses of spacecraft pointing degradation, including evaluation and upgrades of the HYBIC and H-Point Tables. We would lose long-term capability for trend analysis and, if pointing is not improved by the beginning of FY07, pointing degradation would result in degradation of science data reception.
The reduction in science funding in FY07 also corresponds to about 1 FTE, which is about 25% of that devoted to science analysis and will leave only
~3 FTEs devoted to analysis distributed over the five investigations. This will limit the analysis activities to a few topics at a time when Voyager is revealing many puzzling aspects of the heliosheath that require additional, not less, analysis and interpretation.
Within the proposed optimal budget, the descoped items described above would be reinstated. In addition, the optimal science budget would support ~2 additional FTEs in FY06 that would permit study of the broader range of topics outlined above and important augmentations in science center data products. Some of the benefits from this increased budget:
. Improve the quality and timeliness of Voyager MAG data sent to the Voyager Investigators, other Scientists, and the NSSDC, and support our analysis and understanding of the MAG data.
. Complete development of capability to provide open access to all CRS data and improve capability to access data and documentation.
. Improve access to detailed CRS documentation to assist other investigators/students in using the data.
. Provide access to CRS data via web services to the SSSC Virtual Observatories.
. Enable more in-depth analysis of science data than that afforded in the guideline budget.
. Provide for more comparisons of solar wind features in the inner and outer heliosphere to understand the solar wind evolution.
. Increase participation of undergraduate and graduate students in data processing and analysis. This would introduce younger scientists into the space physics community.
Over the past year the Flight Team has identified more than seventy tasks that need to be accomplished, in addition to ongoing activities, to insure continued operations of the Voyager spacecraft at acceptable risk levels.
These tasks may be described as items that would improve the operations infrastructure, replace and reduce the number of old workstations, update software modules to work with the newer computer systems and improve productivity and enhance personnel effectiveness to include cross-training and replacement training.
Important areas unattainable at present include acquisition and training of replacement personnel, detailed anomaly analysis, and improved operational efficiencies in several areas. Most of the electronic tools currently in use are ten or more years old. Many are in need of major upgrades or replacement. New technologies now make possible the development of intelligent tools to automate and reduce workloads and the potential for errors, improve spacecraft health monitoring, and provide for more confident long-range planning.
The optimal budget would provide funds to address the items deemed most important. One-time investments include:
. Software modifications required to migrate the data management system to modern computers,.
This would enhance science data delivery and provide backup capability while reducing the number of workstations required for this task by 67%.
. Recompilation of the MARVEL program to operate on modern computers and to create a real-time backup.
. Development of a temperature estimation tool which would alleviate need for outside consultation and the attendant costs and would allow the team to make decisions about optimum and/or safe thermal balance when reconfigurations due to decline in power become necessary
. Analysis of spacecraft pointing degradation and implementation of necessary modifications to flight software
. Update the RTG model to refine lon-range power output predictions and better define mission extension potential.
There is also an ongoing need for an increase in personnel as follows:
. An increase in computer system administration support beginning in FY06 to implement the changes to workstations as described above and to allow Voyager to become up to date with AMMOS deliveries and remain in step with other missions. Current support levels have been insufficient to maintain this state and have resulted in significant workflow inefficiencies for Flight Team members.
. One FTE to initially provide for software and inherent systems administration support for non- AMMOS workstations and to develop Voyager real-time tools for the AMMOS environment, later to be cross-trained in other operations areas to provide backup and/or be a replacement as members leave the Flight Team. It is highly desirable that there always be a person in on-the-job training to eventually replace and minimize the loss of expertise with personnel departures.
Attributable Deep Space Mission Systems costs, though not part of the Voyager budget submission, are included in Table IV, Line 2a of Appendix 1.
These are based on approximately 10 hours of coverage per day per spacecraft, using both the 34-meter and the higher cost 70-meter antenna.
Direct Multimission Ground Systems and Services costs are included in Item 2a of Tables I and II. Estimated center Full Cost Accounting costs were obtained from Resource Analysts at GSFC and MSFC.
Voyager is the only mission currently exploring the far outer heliosphere.
The spacecraft are capable of continued operations and are in position now to characterize the Sun's influence far away from the source. Until there are other missions to the outer heliosphere, Voyager will provide unique in situ information about this region of space. Voyager 1 has entered the heliosheath and Voyager 2 is poised to encounter the termination shock within the next few years. Continuation of the mission at the optimal level would allow for a more robust science mission that would answer fundamental questions about solar influences in the distant heliosphere, the interactions between the solar and interstellar media and the structure of the termination shock. Furthermore, it would provide for a more robust and lower risk operations environment and reinstate a small degree of flexibility for development of further enhancements and efficiency improvements to Flight Team processes.
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK
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