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I came across the Pioneer Anomaly recently, and a quick search here showed there now a theory that fits everything observed.

My question is, should we expect a similar effect from the design of the Voyager probes, or any other deep space mission, now we know what to look for in the data? Can the effect of this phenomenon be calculated on those other probes and then searched for in the relevant data?

Can this phenomena be exploited to improve future spacecraft design?

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  • $\begingroup$ These effects can and have been calculated for other spacecraft. The effect is irrelevant for spacecraft design because the navigation teams correct the course of the spacecraft anyway. However, and this is where physics could get interesting, one could imagine launching a special spacecraft that has extremely tightly controlled dimensions and radiation anisotropies and that carries much higher precision atomic clocks with it to test the Pioneer anomaly and a host of related possible effects that point beyond standard physics. Is it worth a $500 (or so) million mission? Maybe. $\endgroup$
    – CuriousOne
    Apr 28, 2015 at 3:25
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    $\begingroup$ Would Space Exploration be a better home for this question? $\endgroup$
    – Qmechanic
    Apr 28, 2015 at 7:38
  • $\begingroup$ This might be a "nice" (but somewhat careless) way to deflect an asteroid if we had several years, I suppose. Stick a radioactive source on the surface (ignore the fact that they rotate, which ruins this idea) and let the source lightly nudge the object for the next ten years… $\endgroup$ Apr 28, 2015 at 11:52
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    $\begingroup$ @CuriousOne : Part of that argument seems a little sniffy - in particular, it seems (as least given what I've heard) that the whole Pioneer anomaly has now been explained by thermal effects, to the level of measurement error. So you cannot then say that this anomaly "points beyond standard physics". That said, your larger point may still be right - such an experiment could allow for a new and as-yet unperformed rigorous test of the laws of physics and thus has the potential to reveal new effects that are inconsistent. But just pointing that out, just in case. $\endgroup$ Sep 9, 2018 at 7:57

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The Pioneer and the Voyager probes are controlled in different ways.

Pioneer was spin-stabilized. By spinning the craft, it could act like a gyroscope and maintain the antenna pointing at the earth over long periods of time without using any thrusters.

Voyager does not spin. Instead it uses (small) thrusters to change the attitude of the platform as needed.

The big difference here is that without the gyroscopic stability, Voyager's attitude cannot be held in any direction with exactly zero error. The residual error is corrected with thruster firings. These firings affect not only the attitude of the probe, but also the momentum. Where Pioneer could spend long stretches of time drifting, Voyager is thrusting much more frequently. These firings would obscure any attempt to see a similar pattern in how it is moving.

New Horizons spent some time travelling with spin stabilization as well, but according to this answer on the Space stackexchange, precise tracking was not performed so there's no comparable data to look at.

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