THIS DAY IN HISTORY: Voyager 2 Marks 48 Years in Space, Still Exploring Beyond the Solar System
By Space Coast Daily // August 20, 2025
August 20, 1977
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – On this day in 1977, NASA launched Voyager 2, a spacecraft that would go on to make history as one of humanity’s greatest achievements in space exploration. Today, the probe celebrates 48 years in space, continuing its mission from the distant reaches of interstellar space.
Voyager 2 was launched on August 20, 1977, just weeks before its twin, Voyager 1. Together, the spacecraft conducted groundbreaking encounters with the outer planets, returning stunning images and invaluable scientific data from Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Voyager 2 remains the only spacecraft to have visited all four giant planets.
Now more than 12 billion miles from Earth, Voyager 2 is operating in interstellar space, where it studies cosmic rays, magnetic fields, and plasma from beyond the influence of our Sun. Though its instruments and power supply have diminished over time, the spacecraft continues to send back data that offers scientists rare insights into this largely uncharted frontier.
NASA engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory carefully manage Voyager 2’s limited power, keeping select instruments operational while ensuring communications continue through the Deep Space Network. Scientists estimate that the probe could remain in contact with Earth into the 2030s, nearly six decades after launch.
Voyager 2 carries with it the famous “Golden Record,” a time capsule of Earth’s sounds, music, and images intended as a message for any intelligent life that may one day encounter the spacecraft.
Forty-eight years after launch, Voyager 2 remains a symbol of human curiosity and ingenuity—continuing to journey farther than anyone could have imagined when it first left Earth.
