In addition to what others have mentioned, there’s also a problem of communication. Inverse square law is a bitch. It was actually assumed at the start that the limit of the Voyager missions would be communicating with the probes, but improvements in radio technology have kept it going longer.
Information on the heliopause is about the only useful thing we can get from something out that far. It turns out to be a lot more complex than we thought. After that, there’s nothing interesting until you can get to the next star, and our radio technology isn’t up for that.
Information on the heliopause is about the only useful thing we can get from something out that far. It turns out to be a lot more complex than we thought.
It seems to me that this would be worth a mission?
It’d be hard to justify a mission on that alone. At least for now. Get space based industry going and then there’s lots of missions that open up.
New Horizons will get there eventually, and from a brief search, it sounds like it could still get back useful data once it’s out that far. NASA will need to keep the communications line funded, though.
In addition to what others have mentioned, there’s also a problem of communication. Inverse square law is a bitch. It was actually assumed at the start that the limit of the Voyager missions would be communicating with the probes, but improvements in radio technology have kept it going longer.
Information on the heliopause is about the only useful thing we can get from something out that far. It turns out to be a lot more complex than we thought. After that, there’s nothing interesting until you can get to the next star, and our radio technology isn’t up for that.
It seems to me that this would be worth a mission?
It’d be hard to justify a mission on that alone. At least for now. Get space based industry going and then there’s lots of missions that open up.
New Horizons will get there eventually, and from a brief search, it sounds like it could still get back useful data once it’s out that far. NASA will need to keep the communications line funded, though.