Dr Garry Hunt, the UK's only representative on the Voyager imaging team, has spoken about his role in the mission as the probes approach a light day's distance from Earth. The probes launched in 1977 and are still running nearly half a century later.
Hunt said he learned in December 1972 that he had been selected from nearly a thousand proposals to join the eight-member imaging team. The team's first mission meetings were held in February 1973, and the spacecraft had to be launched within a ten-day window in the summer of 1977.
He described the mission as a unique opportunity because the major planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune line up virtually in a straight line every 176 years. Funding was initially limited to Jupiter and Saturn, and Hunt noted that at the time the mission was decided, no spacecraft had yet passed through the asteroid belt.
Hunt credited the engineers at JPL for the probes' longevity, saying reliability was key and that the spacecraft was built around the earlier Mariner designs.