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The full Grand Tour is cancelled and rebuilt as a two-spacecraft mission

1972 · Recorded · space

The source states this happened, and its date is not in the future. The word the source used for it is historical.

The ambitious multi-spacecraft Grand Tour programme studied at the start of the 1970s, using a new self-repairing spacecraft design, was cancelled on cost grounds. What survived was a smaller, approved mission to Jupiter and Saturn only, using two spacecraft derived from the Mariner line; it was renamed Voyager shortly before launch. The capability to continue to Uranus and Neptune was not formally part of the approved mission, and Voyager 2's trajectory was designed to preserve the option without depending on it.

Source

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NSSDCA · NSSDCA master catalogue, Voyager 1 (COSPAR 1977-084A) and Voyager 2 (COSPAR 1977-076A), https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1977-084A

Standing

This record: partially verified · publisher: partially verified

How it arrived

Editorial — A dated record from the Richseen Atlas editorial corpus, written and cited by a curator. Not captured from anywhere, and not live.

Where

At a canonical Atlas object, placed and checked by a curator.

Subject

MISSION_VOYAGER_1 · MISSION_VOYAGER_2 · Jet Propulsion Laboratory