<i>>Researchers suspect it may take several years for Voyager 1 to clear this area entirely, after which it will finally reach interstellar space.</i><p>The RTGs in Voyager 1 are only good until about 2025 iirc, ~12-13 more years. Here's hoping it makes it through in time.
I was trying to visualize the so called 'magnetic highway' and found this along with further explanation.<p><a href="http://phys.org/news/2012-12-voyager-encounters-region-deep-space.html" rel="nofollow">http://phys.org/news/2012-12-voyager-encounters-region-deep-...</a>
> <i>A few models did have a feature like this, but it was only a transient one that appeared at certain times of the solar cycle.</i><p>How transient is transient?
30 days is not a large fraction of an 11 year solar cycle.
I wonder how hard it would be to do purely private (or maybe university-consortium) deep space probes. I assume almost any of the standard rockets could accommodate an extra stage to do escape, especially if you just need earth escape and can steal mv from other bodies to escape the solar system.<p>The expensive part would be operating it indefinitely, right? I assume you could outsource to a satellite TT&C facility.
What I find most interesting about Voyager-1 and 2, that these crafts went to the outskirts of our Solar system because of funding cuts for Mariner program (Venus and Mars research). Marvelous what you can achieve even when you are given less money.
I have mixed feeling every time I read this kind of news. I envy those people who made it happen 35 years ago, they produced stuff that's still sophisticated by today's standard, while I'm here writing crappy websites. Man, I feel small.
I had to double check when I read that the Voyagers started their mission 35 years ago, it's hard to believe.<p>Why aren't we sending more of these, in every direction?