How long will it take for Voyager to leave the solar system?

In August 2012, Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to cross into interstellar space. However, if we define our solar system as the Sun and everything that primarily orbits the Sun, Voyager 1 will remain within the confines of the solar system until it emerges from the Oort cloud in another 14,000 to 28,000 years.

What speed is needed for our spacecraft to leave the solar system?

If you’re trying to leave the solar system from Earth’s orbit, however, R is about 93,000,000 miles (150,000,000 km; the distance of Earth from the Sun) and not 432,000 miles (695,500 km; the Sun’s radius, as used in the figure), so the escape velocity is only about 94,000 mph (151,300 km/h).

How long will the Voyager spacecraft have sufficient electrical power to communicate with Earth?

Voyager 1’s extended mission is expected to continue until around 2025 when its radioisotope thermoelectric generators will no longer supply enough electric power to operate its scientific instruments. At that time, it will be more than 15.5 billion miles (25 billion km) away from the Earth.

Will Voyager ever return?

Engineers expect each spacecraft to continue operating at least one science instrument until around 2025. The two Voyager spacecraft could remain in the range of the Deep Space Network through about 2036, depending on how much power the spacecraft still have to transmit a signal back to Earth.

Will Voyager return to the solar system?

Not until about 20,000 years from now will the Voyagers pass through the Oort cloud — the shell of comets and icy rubble that orbits the sun at a distance of up to 100,000 astronomical units, or 100,000 times the average Earth-sun distance — finally waving goodbye to its solar system of origin.

Is NASA still in contact with Voyager 1?

But farther—much farther—Voyager 1, one of the oldest space probes and the most distant human-made object from Earth, is still doing science. But even as it drifts farther and farther from a dimming sun, it’s still sending information back to Earth, as scientists recently reported in The Astrophysical Journal.