# Voyager 2

*Spacecraft*

The only spacecraft to have visited all four giant planets, using an alignment that comes round once in 175 years: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989 - the only close look anybody has ever had at the last two. It crossed into interstellar space in 2018, on a course far south of the plane of the planets.

| | |
| --- | --- |
| Agency | NASA |
| Launched | 1977-08-20 - still working |
| From the Sun | 21,522,268,132 km (+1,299,941 km/d) |
| From the Earth | 21,450,420,714 km (+2,912,972 km/d) |
| A signal takes | 19 h 53 m |
| Travelling at | 15.3 km/s |

Distances and speed are computed from JPL Horizons trajectories and are true of 2026-09-05, changing at the rate given beside each. The interpolation itself is good to a few kilometres; what ages these figures is the date, not the arithmetic.

## Path

Open as well, and steeper. Neptune bent it south in 1989, so it leaves the Solar System about 48° below the plane of the planets at some 15 km/s.

## Along the way

- 1979-07-09 — Closest to Jupiter
- 1981-08-26 — Closest to Saturn
- 1986-01-24 — The only close look anyone has had at Uranus
- 1989-08-25 — The only close look anyone has had at Neptune
- 2018-11-05 — Crossed the heliopause, six years after its twin

## Elsewhere

- On the live map: https://www.orbitalmap.space/?world=solar-system&focus=voyager-2
- The mission's own page: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/
- This object as a page: https://www.orbitalmap.space/o/voyager-2/
- Every object: https://www.orbitalmap.space/o/
- What this site is and what it reads: https://www.orbitalmap.space/llms.txt