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Can we send a voyager 3 with much advance battery and sensor, and at much faster speed so that it may reach farther than voyager 1 and 2, in let’s say just couple of years ?
As far as I understand their speed mostly comes from gravity assists from Jupiter, so you'd have to wait for suitable orbital alignments and the basic technology for "much faster speed" doesn't exist.
Can we send a voyager 3 with much advance battery and sensor, and at much faster speed so that it may reach farther than voyager 1 and 2, in let’s say just couple of years ?
Looks like we lost contact with 10 and 11 in 1995 and 2006 respectively. They both ran out of power and shut down.
The voyager missions used a rare planetary alignment to get boosts. And a radioisotope thermal engine that has gotten pushback in later spacecraft designs, although they have ceramic versions now meant to address most of the issues.
That said, New Horizons, which gave us those lovely shots of Pluto, was launched in 2006. But it is traveling faster than the Pioneers but slower than Voyagers, so it’ll be the third farthest away at some point.
Can we send a voyager 3 with much advance battery and sensor, and at much faster speed so that it may reach farther than voyager 1 and 2, in let’s say just couple of years ?
No, we cannot. We could make a Voyager 3, but I don't think there is any way to expect it to catch up with currently feasible technology. And it could only be launched at specific times. It certainly could have more advanced sensors and batteries. I don't know if the battery improvement would really matter on a decades long mission.
Can we send a voyager 3 with much advance battery and sensor, and at much faster speed so that it may reach farther than voyager 1 and 2, in let’s say just couple of years ?
Yes, but mostly no, also no, and, frankly, why would we. Yes: we could lift off a much heavier spacecraft, give it plenty of fuel, and many of its parts would be lighter than their 1970s equivalent, giving us lots of room for modern sensors No: the "battery" in the old ones is nuclear and it's going to be difficult to beat that (but not impossible: a nuclear stirling engine, either powered by fission or by decay, e.g…
Newer atomic batteries can theoretically last centuries instead of decades.
V'ger 1 atomic battery is based on Plutonium-238 which has a halflife of ~88 years. It's down to ~210W output from initial 470W at launch time.
Americium-241 has a half-life of over 400 years.
I didn’t realize the Voyagers relied on a once in a 175 year planetary alignment. What a lucky break technology had advanced to the point we could make use of it.
When it did not happen, I think they moved on to 2012 :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but mostly no, also no, and, frankly, why would we. Yes: we could lift off a much heavier spacecraft, give it plenty of fuel, and many of its parts would be lighter than their 1970s equivalent, giving us lots of room for modern sensors No: the "battery" in the old ones is nuclear and it's going to be difficult to beat that (but not impossible: a nuclear stirling engine, either powered by fission or by decay, e.g…
> the "battery" in the old ones is nuclear and it's going to be difficult to beat that Newer atomic batteries can theoretically last centuries instead of decades. V'ger 1 atomic battery is based on Plutonium-238 which has a halflife of ~88 years. It's down to ~210W output from initial 470W at launch time. Americium-241 has a half-life of over 400 years.
So yes maybe with Americium-241 we could have something which lasts 4 times a much _and_ gives us the same amount of power thanks to a SRG.
Were engineers 50 years ago just much smarter than we are now? It’s pretty unbelievable that these things still work. Or is there something systemic about how they were able to achieve so much so long ago with basically no computers to help.
Can we send a voyager 3 with much advance battery and sensor, and at much faster speed so that it may reach farther than voyager 1 and 2, in let’s say just couple of years ?
Yes, but mostly no, also no, and, frankly, why would we. Yes: we could lift off a much heavier spacecraft, give it plenty of fuel, and many of its parts would be lighter than their 1970s equivalent, giving us lots of room for modern sensors No: the "battery" in the old ones is nuclear and it's going to be difficult to beat that (but not impossible: a nuclear stirling engine, either powered by fission or by decay, e.g…
Voyager-2 gained about 10 km/s at Jupiter, about 5 km/s at Saturn, about 2 km/s at Uranus, and lost about 2 km/s at Neptune. [1]
Dawn spacecraft gained 11.5 km/s from ion thrusters.
So just gravity assist maneuver just around Jupiter alone + massive tank for ion thrusters gas might give 20+ km/s
Though I agree that value of such a mission would be low.
[1] https://www.planetary.org/articles/20130926-gravity-assist