Voyager Probes Celebrate 49 Years as NASA Extends Their Interstellar Mission

Voyager 2, launched on August 20 1977, joins its sister craft Voyager 1 in a near-half-century journey that has taken them past all four outer gas giants and into interstellar space. As of November 2026, Voyager 1 will be roughly 16 billion miles (one light-day) from Earth, while Voyager 2 will be more than 13.2 billion miles away, traveling at about 34,000 mph relative to the Sun. Both spacecraft lose about 4 watts of electrical power annually, leading NASA to install lower-power devices on Voyager 2 in August and to schedule comparable upgrades for Voyager 1.

The mission, costing over $865 million, remains NASA's longest-running program, still returning valuable data on the interstellar medium despite occasional communication glitches. To commemorate Voyager 2's 49th birthday, NASA released a gallery of 23 historic images captured during the probes' planetary flybys. The spacecraft continue to carry a golden record intended for any extraterrestrial listeners.