The deep space probes nasa launched in the 70s?

Question

did they aim them at any particular star or anything?

Answer 1

Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were designed as interstellar missions: once they had flown by the outer planets (but not Pluto, we have only just launched a probe to Pluto in January 2006 due to flyby Pluto and Charon in July 2015) they were then to head out beyond the heliopause and out of the Solar System, into inter-stellar space.

Voyager 1 was originally planned as Mariner 11 of the Mariner program. From the outset, it was designed to take advantage of the then-new technique of gravity assist. Luckily, the development of interplanetary probes coincided with an alignment of the planets called the Grand Tour (a rare geometric arrangement of the outer planets that only occurs once every 176 years).

Because of this alignment, Voyager could visit each of these planets in just twelve years, instead of the 30 that would usually be required.

The Grand Tour trajectory was a linked series of gravity assists that, with only the minimal fuel needed for course corrections, would enable a single probe to visit all four of the solar system's gas giant planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The identical Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes were designed with the Grand Tour in mind, and their launches were timed to enable the Grand Tour if desired.

Voyager 1 only visted Jupiter and Saturn but Voyager 2 took in all four, and was the first probe to flyby Uranus and Neptune, therefore.

Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977 by NASA from Cape Canaveral aboard a Titan IIIE Centaur rocket, shortly after its sister craft, Voyager 2 on August 20, 1977. Despite being launched after Voyager 2, Voyager 1 was sent on a faster trajectory so it reached Jupiter and Saturn before its sister craft.

CURRENT STATUS

In May 2005 a NASA press release said that consensus was that Voyager 1 was now in the heliosheath. Scientists believe the craft will reach the heliopause in 2015.

As of March 9, 2007, Voyager 1 was at a distance of 102 AU from the Sun, which makes it the most distant artificial object from Earth. At this distance, it is more distant from the Sun than any known natural solar-system object, including 90377 Sedna. Though Sedna has an orbit that takes it 975 AU away from the Sun at aphelion, as of 2006 it is less than 90 AU away from the Sun and approaching its perihelion at 76 AU.

At its current distance, light takes over 13.8 hours to reach the spacecraft from Earth. As of November 2005, Voyager 1 was traveling at a speed of 17.2 kilometers per second relative to the sun (3.6 AU per year or 38,400 miles per hour), 10% faster than Voyager 2.

As of September 5, 2006, Voyager 2 is at a distance of around 80.5 AU from the Sun, deep in the scattered disc, and traveling outward at roughly 3.3 AUs a year. It is more than twice the distance from the Sun as Pluto, and far beyond the perihelion of 90377 Sedna, but not yet beyond the outer limits of the orbit of Eris.

FUTURE APPROACH TO ANOTHER STAR

Voyager 1 is not heading towards any particular star, but in 40,000 years it will be within 1.7 light years of the star AC+793888 in the Camelopardis constellation.

Answer 2

Voyager 1 and 2 were sent on the "Grand Tour", as it was called back then.

Currently both probes are out in the Oort cloud, with Voyager 1 approaching the heliopause, the place when where the solar wind meets the interstellar wind.

You can find out more about the Voyager psobes and their science from the NASA web site. Click on "Missions", "Current Missions" and scroll down for Voyager.

Ed

Answer 3

They were aimed to fly by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, but they are not aimed at anything in particular after that. Even if they were aimed at the closest star, at the speed they are going, which is only about 30,000 MPH, it would take almost 100,000 years to reach that closest star. The closest star is thousands of times farther away than Pluto.

Answer 4

Below is a great link which shows where each of the 5 spacecraft leaving our solar system are and which direction they are heading.

Answer 5

They aimed them so they would pass nearby all of the planets. After that, they don't care where it goes.