Voyager 1 and Voyager 2: A Living Timeline of Humanity’s Most Distant Spacecraft
For nearly half a century, the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft have continued an extraordinary journey far beyond the planets they were originally designed to explore. Launched in 1977, the twin probes transformed our understanding of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune before becoming the first human-made objects to enter interstellar space. Today, the Voyagers operate under severe power limitations, communicating through aging systems powered by decaying plutonium radioisotope generators. NASA engineers continue to manage every remaining watt with remarkable precision. The missions have entered a delicate phase in which scientific instruments are progressively shut down to preserve the spacecraft for as long as possible. The latest milestone came on April 17, 2026, when NASA shut down Voyager 1’s Low-Energy Charged Particle (LECP) instrument as part of the agency’s long-term power conservation strategy. Despite these losses, both spacecraft still provide unique scientifi...