Each Voyager spacecraft is incredibly complex, with 65,000 parts and over 5 million equivalent electronic parts.
Voyager’s autonomous fault protection system includes seven top-level routines capable of handling multiple failures .
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The spacecraft was designed to withstand high radiation levels, particularly during the Jupiter flyby, with radiation shielding that would protect sensitive parts .
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Voyager’s scientific instruments are exceptionally precise, with the ability to point within one-tenth of a degree.
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To ensure steady images, Voyager’s angular rates are 15 times slower than the motion of a clock’s hour hand.
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Despite its advanced electronics and heaters, each Voyager spacecraft operates on only 400 watts of power, a quarter of the electricity used by an average home in the western U.S.
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Voyager’s small thrusters provide attitude control, producing a thrust of only three ounces, and it would take nearly six hours to accelerate a car to 48 km/h (30 mph) using just one thruster.
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Voyager used gravity-assist swing-bys of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus to significantly increase speed.