What Are These Spacecraft Heading Outside the Solar System?
They are currently 4 spacecraft heading outside of our solar system. Pioneer 10 and 11, and Voyager 1 and 2. The Pioneer missions were the first missions NASA sent to Jupiter and Saturn. They worked between 1972 and 1979. Both had been conceived to fly past their primary objectives, star bound. Although the Pioneers now are mute and don’t make science anymore (they were tracked by the Deep Space Network until 1997 and 2003 respectively only), they are now heading to the outside of the solar system. Pioneer 10 is 7.8 billion miles away. Voyager 1 and 2, on the other hand, were missions to Jupiter and Saturn by the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, as their mission was eventually extended into a comprehensive tour of the gas giants, then into a star-bound journey. At the difference of the Pioneers, the Voyagers are still active and are making science, particularly at the outer boundary of the “heliosphere”, the solar system domain in space. Their work should continue durin
