Voyager 1 will cross the one-light-day threshold from Earth on Nov. 18, 2026

Universe Today said Voyager 1 will cross the one-light-day threshold from Earth on Nov. 18, 2026, at 5:16 AM EST, at about 26 billion kilometers or 172 astronomical units.

SciTechDaily and Mashable say Earth to Voyager 1 radio messages will take 24 hours each way after the spacecraft passes one light-day, with the return trip taking another 24 hours. The spacecraft’s surroundings and everything aboard it will not change when the threshold is crossed; the event marks humanity’s reach and endurance rather than altering conditions onboard. For comparison, the Moon and cis-lunar space, the farthest point humans have reached, sit just over one light-second away.

Universe Today and SciTechDaily report that Voyager 1 moves at 16.9 kilometers per second relative to the Sun, or 38,000 miles per hour, on a path toward the constellation Ophiuchus near the border with Hercules. SciTechDaily gives the speed as 38,000 miles per hour, or 61,155 kilometers per hour, tied to the approaching milestone, and says Voyager 1 will be 16.09 billion miles or 25.89 billion kilometers from Earth on Nov. 18. The spacecraft is outbound toward AC +79 3888, also known as Gliese 445, with a flyby expected in about 40,000 years.

The twin craft began a Grand Tour that reached Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune using a rare planetary alignment and minimum fuel, with Voyager 1 lifting off after Voyager 2 on Sept. 5, 1977. Jimmy Carter was U.S. president and Star Wars was a box office hit when the twin spacecraft departed on their Grand Tour in 1977. Yahoo Tech explains that although a rare planetary alignment made the Grand Tour feasible, mission planners could not be certain of continued funding for the outer planets when the spacecraft launched.

Voyager 1 passed Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980. The Titan flyby on Nov. 12, 1980, pushed the spacecraft out of the solar system’s plane.

FOX 35 Orlando reports that Voyager 2 departed ahead of Voyager 1 to survey the solar system’s four largest planets, and NASA extended its mission to interstellar space after Neptune. Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989, providing the only up-close view of those planetary systems to date, and the source notes that after Neptune, NASA extended Voyager 2’s mission to interstellar space just like its twin. The twin spacecraft have explored 48 moons, according to Mashable. Titan may have prebiotic or pre-life chemistry, Yahoo Tech says.

Mashable says Voyager 1 entered interstellar space first in Aug. 2012, and both Voyagers remain the only spacecraft to have left the solar system, though New Horizons is attempting the same escape. SciTechDaily and Universe Today report that Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are the only spacecraft to have directly sampled interstellar space beyond the heliosphere, and both remain operational after repeated mission extensions. SciTechDaily states that keeping the instruments running preserves access to measurements that no other spacecraft can provide.

FOX 35 Orlando reports that each Voyager carries a Golden Record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk in an aluminum jacket with cartridges, needles and symbolic playback instructions meant to communicate Earth’s sounds and images. The records serve as time capsules potentially intended to communicate with extraterrestrials, with the information drawn from NASA’s Voyager mission websites.

Universe Today and Yahoo Tech report that each Voyager spacecraft sheds about four watts of power per year from its plutonium-fueled generator, and the diminishing supply forces engineers to shut off instruments or find clever power-saving methods. Voyager 1 now uses a little over 200 watts, down from 470 watts at launch. PU-238 has a half-life of just under 88 years, causing the radioisotope thermoelectric generators to steadily lose power. The current electricity consumption is about enough to power an electric blanket.

SciTechDaily and Universe Today report that engineers finished Voyager 1’s Big Bang power swap in early September 2026, switching out three devices for three lower-power alternatives roughly six weeks after Voyager 2 received the same treatment. Yahoo Tech says the swap allowed remaining science instruments to work longer than anticipated. Voyager 2 received its Big Bang power swap about six weeks before Voyager 1’s September 2026 operation, meaning it occurred in August 2026.

All six devices in the Big Bang swaps help keep the spacecraft warm, leading engineers to make all three Voyager 1 changes at once to spread heat while reducing electricity use, SciTechDaily reports. The swap took two primary heaters and an older 8-track digital tape recorder off Voyager 1 and put three low-power secondary choices in their place.

Universe Today and SciTechDaily report that mission controllers shut down Voyager 1’s Low Energy Charged Particle experiment in early 2026. Without the Big Bang swap, power loss would have forced another instrument off by summer 2027. The twin Voyagers started with 10 dedicated science instruments apiece, some shut down after planetary encounters and others kept for heliosphere study, with two more shut down recently due to power loss.

Voyager 1’s Plasma Wave Subsystem and a magnetometer instrument remain active. SciTechDaily traces the instrument reductions to nearly half a century of power loss since the 1977 launch, with the mission’s instruments dedicated to studying the heliosphere’s outer region after planetary encounters ended.

Mashable reports that NASA says the Big Bang strategy should keep Voyager 1’s Cosmic Ray Subsystems, Magnetometers and Plasma Wave Subsystems running for at least one more year. Because of the Big Bang power swap, JPL said the Voyagers could continue operating science instruments longer than previously anticipated.

SciTechDaily and Mashable report that Voyager 1 stopped responding to the Deep Space Network on Oct. 18 and Oct. 19, 2026. Yahoo Tech says its signal reappeared on Oct. 20, ending a 48-hour interruption before engineers sent troubleshooting commands. Universe Today places the brief communications loss on Oct. 20, 2026, lasting 48 hours, at odds with other sources that put the non-response on Oct. 18 and Oct. 19. According to Yahoo Tech, Voyager 1 fixed its October 2026 communications glitch by itself before engineers could send a remote fix.

The two scheduled Deep Space Network contacts on Oct. 18 and Oct. 19 were 24 hours apart, SciTechDaily says. SciTechDaily and Yahoo Tech report that engineers believe one Voyager 1 thruster group went offline and its backups switched on automatically through fault protection, placing the spacecraft in a safe configuration while the cause remains under investigation. Yahoo Tech says JPL added that the team has determined one thruster group went offline and backups turned on. Thrusters are small rocket engines used to control a spacecraft’s motion or orientation.

Universe Today and Yahoo Tech report that Kareem Badaruddin, Voyager mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said on Oct. 29, 2026, that the team had never seen the spacecraft behave this way before. Yahoo Tech attributes the remark to an agency statement about the October communication incident. “We’re relieved to be back in contact with Voyager 1 and are eager to understand what happened.”

Universe Today and SciTechDaily report that NASA’s Deep Space Network runs three antennas or facilities around the world to monitor Voyager’s ever fainter signals, and controllers should expect more signal outages in the years ahead. When its radio signal disappeared in October 2026, Voyager 1 was about 16 billion miles, or 25.75 billion kilometers, from Earth.

Next year, in 2027, Voyager 1 will pass its half-century birthday in space. The proposed Interstellar Probe could one day follow it out of the solar system. Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at JPL, said in 2022 that she hoped the mission would keep operating into the 2030s. JPL has not provided a newer estimate for spacecraft longevity.

Universe Today reports that Pioneers 10 and 11 have fallen silent, while Voyagers 1 and 2 and the still-active New Horizons mission are leaving the solar system for galactic space. The source places the Voyagers alongside other outbound spacecraft. The upper stage Star boosters that helped the Voyagers reach escape velocity are also traveling outbound.