On August 20th, 1977, Voyager 2 was launched on the most powerful launch vehicle available at the time, the Titan IIIE, on a mission to explore all 4 of the gas giant outer planets, and onward to deep space.
Voyager 2 was, oddly, the first of the 2 Voyager probes launched – Voyager 1 was launched later in order to have the best flight path for its planned mission, which also resulted in reaching a higher speed than Voyager 2, reaching interstellar space first. That’s beyond the point here, though – today marks the day 40 years ago that the probes (literally) got off the ground and began their missions to explore our solar system, and beyond, in a way we never had before.
Sure, there were the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 probes before then, but they really were just that – pioneers to show that a vehicle could go out this far, passing through the asteroid belt, past Jupiter and past Saturn, without failing. They proved the Voyager missions could happen, and happen they did – Voyager 1 making proper passes by Jupiter and Saturn, and Voyager 2 passing not just those planets, but Neptune and Uranus – Voyager 2 is still the only probe to do such.
40 years later, the probes still function. They are still making measurements, and are still in constant communications with Earth. Now billions of miles away, their signals are but a speck of radio data in the vastness of space, but they are still working – they are still doing what they have been doing for 4 decades, since literally before I was born. Amazing, to say the least.
So, back to the point of launch…. we actually have amazingly little footage of the launches of Voyager 2 or Voyager 1. I honestly can’t understand why, save for the fact that maybe, since this was between the end of the Apollo program, and the beginnings of the Shuttle program, interest was so low that a minimum of interest in documenting the event, even at NASA, was shown. That, or maybe the footage is just buried away or worse, lost over the years. Still, you would think there would be more archival imagery out there, right?
In any case, enjoy this bit of footage I could dig up.