14 DAY TRIAL // Officials at NASA announce that Suzanne Dodd is the new manager of the Voyager mission, whose two spacecrafts are currently making their way to the edge of our solar system.
The expert is based at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in Pasadena, California. When she first started working for the lab, back in 1984, she sequenced science and engineering commands for both Voyager spacecrafts.
Therefore, she has a vast experience in understanding how this mission operates, and what its goals and expectations are. This made the expert an ideal choice for the new position.
The change in mission management took place as both Voyager 1 and 2 are beginning to reach the edge of the solar system, and produce new science of the interactions taking place where the heliosphere ends.
“I'm thrilled to re-join a pioneering mission that set up adventures for so many other spacecraft to follow,” Dodd says of her appointment.
“There will be more firsts to come as we gather unique data once the spacecraft reach interstellar space. There isn't a single mission currently on the books that will be doing what Voyager is doing,” she adds.
The expert says that the two spacecrafts launched in 1977. Voyager 2 took off on August 20, while its sister explorer launched on September 5. They are now some 17 billion kilometers (11 billion miles) away from the Sun, which makes them the most distant active spacecrafts ever.
They are expected to pass the boundaries of the heliosphere soon, in about 4 to 6 years. Once this happens, they will leave behind the protective shield of our solar system, which is made up of ionized radiations emanating from the Sun.
The explorers will then enter the interstellar medium, which is the matter that fills the void between stars. That area has never been explored directly before, experts at JPL say.
“Coming back to Voyager is like re-learning a language you knew as a kid, but never spoke as an adult. I'm excited to be immersed in the details again,” Dodd says.
After leaving the project in 1989, she went on to collaborate in other NASA/JPL missions, such as the Cassini orbiter around Saturn. She then worked for the Science Center of the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope.
Her contributions managing the infrared survey databases were acknowledged recently, when she was also appointed the new project manager for the Spitzer observatory.
Before Dodd, the Voyager mission was managed by H.M. Schurmeier (1972-76), John Casani (1976-77), Robert Parks (1978-79), Raymond Heacock (1979-81), Esker Davis (1981-82), Richard Laeser (1982-86), Norman Haynes (1987-89), George Textor (1989-97) and Ed Massey (1998 to 2010).