Voyager 1 launches
Voyager 1 lifted off from the same pad on the same vehicle type, on a shorter, faster trajectory to Jupiter and Saturn. Both spacecraft carried a copy of the Golden Record and three radioisotope thermoelectric generators supplying about 470 watts between them, and both were designed against a primary mission of roughly five years.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Voyager 1 · mission · Interstellar space, in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus · not located
- Launch Complex 41, Cape Canaveral · launch site · United States
- Titan IIIE-Centaur · launch vehicle · United States · not located
- The Voyager Golden Record · artefact · not located
- Multi-Hundred-Watt radioisotope thermoelectric generator · technology · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive master catalogue entries for Voyager 1 and Voyager 2
The canonical mission record for both spacecraft: launch dates of 20 August 1977 (Voyager 2) and 5 September 1977 (Voyager 1), the Titan IIIE-Centaur launch vehicle, Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral, the eleven-instrument science payload and the three-generator power system. V55 verification basis: THE CATALOGUE WAS NOT REACHED. nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov returned EGRESS_BLOCKED when fetched and the search budget was exhausted before it could be searched; the COSPAR designations and every fact attributed here come from standard mission record held in general knowledge, not from the catalogue. This record names where a curator should check, not what was checked.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NSSDCA · catalogue records, access attempted 2026-08 · Partly verified
NSSDCA master catalogue, Voyager 1 (COSPAR 1977-084A) and Voyager 2 (COSPAR 1977-076A), https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1977-084A
Recorded on Voyager 1
- The full Grand Tour is cancelled and rebuilt as a two-spacecraft mission
- Voyager 2 launches
- Voyager 1 launches
- Voyager 1 closest approach to Jupiter
- Active volcanism found on Io
- Voyager 1 passes Saturn and Titan, and leaves the plane of the planets
- Voyager 1 photographs the solar system from outside it
- Voyager 1 crosses the termination shock at about 94 AU
- Voyager 1 crosses the heliopause at 121.6 AU
- The 2012 crossing is confirmed from plasma oscillations
- Voyager 1's cosmic ray subsystem is switched off
- Voyager 2's low-energy charged particle instrument is switched off
- Voyager 1's low-energy charged particle instrument due for shutdown
- The "Big Bang" power manoeuvre on Voyager 2
- Voyager 1 reaches one light-day from Earth
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- The "Big Bang" power manoeuvre on Voyager 2 · 2026-07-09
- Voyager 2's low-energy charged particle instrument is switched off · 2025-03-24
- Voyager 1's cosmic ray subsystem is switched off · 2025-02-25
- Voyager 1's low-energy charged particle instrument due for shutdown · 2026 (announced plan)
- Voyager 1 reaches one light-day from Earth · 2026-11-18 02:16 PST (computed)
- The 2012 crossing is confirmed from plasma oscillations · 2013-09-12
- Voyager 1 crosses the heliopause at 121.6 AU · 2012-08-25
- Voyager 1 crosses the termination shock at about 94 AU · 2004-12-16