NASA Sent Voyager 1 to Titan in 1980, Sacrificing a Possible 1986 Pluto Flyby
Updated
Updated · spacedaily.com · Aug 5
NASA Sent Voyager 1 to Titan in 1980, Sacrificing a Possible 1986 Pluto Flyby
1 articles · Updated · spacedaily.com · Aug 5
Summary
1980 mission planners deliberately aimed Voyager 1 at Titan, a choice that ended any chance of later planetary flybys and ruled out a possible Pluto arrival in 1986.
Titan won because its dense atmosphere and Saturn’s rings were higher-priority science targets and carried less risk than sending the probe on a long cruise to distant, poorly understood Pluto.
6,490 kilometers from Titan’s center, the Nov. 12, 1980 flyby sent Voyager 1 behind Saturn’s rings and bent its path about 35 degrees north of the ecliptic, where no further planetary encounters were possible.
Voyager 2 preserved the broader outer-planet tour by continuing to Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989, leaving Voyager 1 to specialize in Titan and Saturn.
That trade also set Voyager 1 on the steep outbound trajectory that made it the most distant human-made object, while Pluto remained unvisited until New Horizons arrived in 2015.