Dwingeloo telescope receives signals from Voyager 1 – Dwingeloo Radio Telescope

Author(s): Thomas Telkamp, Tammo Jan Dijkema, Cees Bassa, Ed Dusschoten

Logo: Sofie Shen

We have used the historic Dwingeloo radio telescope to receive signals from the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Only a few telescopes in the world have received these signals, which are very faint due to the distance of Voyager 1: almost 25 billion kilometers, more than four times the distance to Pluto.

Voyager 1 was launched in 1977 to visit the outer planets in the Solar system. After its primary mission ended, it was sent on a journey out of the Solar system. It is currently the most distant and fastest human-made object, traveling in interstellar space. Its radio signals, traveling at the speed of light, currently need 23 hours to reach Earth.

The Dwingeloo telescope was built in 1956, by what is now ASTRON, Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy. Today the telescope is a national monument, used by amateurs, organized in Stichting Radiotelescoop Dwingeloo (CAMRAS).

Since the Dwingeloo telescope was designed for observing at lower frequencies than the 8.4GHz telemetry transmitted by Voyager 1, a new antenna had to be mounted. At these higher frequencies, the mesh of the dish is less reflective, making it extra challenging to receive faint signals.

To find the very weak carrier signal in the noise, we used orbital predictions of Voyager 1 to correct for the Doppler shift in frequency caused by motion of Earth and Voyager 1. By doing so, the signal could be seen live in the telescope observation room (picture 1). Later analysis confirmed that the Doppler shift corresponds to that of Voyager 1 (picture 2).

While we have shown that we can use the Dwingeloo telescope to receive the carrier signal from Voyager-1, we cannot use the telescope to communicate with it. NASA uses dishes in the Deep-Space Network (DSN) to communicate with Voyager 1. These dishes, located around the globe in Goldstone, Canberra and Madrid, are optimized for these higher frequencies and have a diameter of 70m, much larger than the 25m Dwingeloo Telescope.

Keep your files stored safely and securely with the SanDisk 2TB Extreme Portable SSD. With over 69,505 ratings and an impressive 4.6 out of 5 stars, this product has been purchased over 8K+ times in the past month. At only $129.99, this Amazon’s Choice product is a must-have for secure file storage.

Help keep private content private with the included password protection featuring 256-bit AES hardware encryption. Order now for just $129.99 on Amazon!