Voyager 1 launched on its journey to the stars
On this day · 5 September 1977
On September 5, 1977, NASA launched a probe that would become the most distant human-made object ever, now sailing through interstellar space.
On September 5, 1977, NASA launched Voyager 1 atop a Titan/Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Oddly, it lifted off 16 days after its twin, Voyager 2 — yet a faster trajectory let it reach Jupiter and Saturn first.
The launch nearly failed. The Titan’s second stage shut down early, leaving propellant unburned, so the Centaur upper stage improvised a longer burn to make up the speed. It worked — with the Centaur reportedly just 3.4 seconds from running dry.
Built for a few years among the planets, it has now run for nearly half a century.
After its planetary flybys, Voyager 1 kept going. In 2012 it crossed into interstellar space, the first spacecraft to leave the Sun’s heliosphere, and it remains the most distant human-made object ever built. It still carries the Golden Record, a phonograph disc of sounds and images meant to introduce Earth to anyone who might one day find it.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
