NASA's Distant Aircrafts After More Than 50 Years: Pioneer 10, Voyager 1, More

NASA's infamous spacecraft have been circling the solar system for decades, so here are the latest updates on their missions.

Since the launch of Pioneer 10 in 1972, humans have been launching objects into outer space for 50 years. Most of these probes have confounded expectations and continue to function well after completing their initial mission objectives.

These include the five well-known spacecraft, such as Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, and New Horizons, that have now either reached the limits of our solar system or are still rapidly approaching it. These spacecraft were initially intended to examine our neighboring planets, but they are now blazing a trail beyond the solar system, giving astronomers vantage points in space.

Despite these infamous spacecraft raising many discoveries through successful headlines over the years, many followers of space news may pose the question, where are they now?

What Happened to Voyager 1, Voyager 2?

This year, the Voyager missions commemorated 45 years of operation, a particularly memorable event. These two spacecraft have made significant contributions to astronomers' knowledge of the solar system, from close fly-bys of the outer planets to investigating humans' farthest reach in space.

Space reports that the Voyagers' main task is to determine where the impact of the sun ends and that of other stars begins. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 both passed through the heliopause, or the point where the sun's particle flux no longer has a significant influence.

"Voyager 1 has now been in interstellar space for a decade...and it's still going, still going strong," According to Linda Spilker, Voyager project scientist and a planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

What Happened to Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11?

Meanwhile, NASA's Pioneer spacecraft is prominently known for becoming the first earthly craft ever to sweep past the ringed planet Saturn in 1979. As an amazing feat, Earthsky reports that the spacecraft crossed the plane of Saturn's rings and reached within 13,000 miles (21,000 km) of the planet.

Unfortunately, these historic 50-year-old spacecraft are no longer operational as the Pioneer 10 stopped receiving signals in 2003, while Pioneer 11 has not made any progress since 1995.

What Happened to New Horizons?

With its launch in 2006, New Horizons is the latest of these revolutionary missions. This probe has been flying out of the solar system at a record pace since finishing its well-known flyby of Pluto in 2015. It is expected to arrive at the heliopause around 2040.

As its first mission extension, it successfully executed a flyby of the smaller Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth in 2019 in addition to completing its initial goal.

However, according to NASA, the latest update on the spacecraft is that it went into hibernation earlier this year until March 1, 2023, since an extended mission has not been authorized yet.