Probes Leaving The Solar System
| Spacecraft | Organization | Notes | Image | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pioneer 10 | NASA | Left Jupiter in December 1973. Mission ended March 1997. Last contact January 23, 2003. Craft now presumed dead; no further contact attempts planned. | ||
| Pioneer 11 | NASA | Left Saturn in September 1979. Last contact September 1995. The craft's antenna cannot be manoeuvred to point to Earth, and it is not known if it is still transmitting. No further contact attempts are planned. | ||
| Voyager 1 | NASA | Left Saturn in November 1980. Still in regular contact and transmitting scientific data (as of April 2011). Contact hoped to be maintained until at least 2020. | ||
| Voyager 2 | NASA | Left Neptune in August 1989. Still in regular contact and transmitting scientific data (as of April 2011). Contact hoped to be maintained until at least 2020. | ||
| New Horizons | NASA | Currently en route to outer Solar System. Expected to reach Pluto in July 2015. |
Read more about this topic: List Of Solar System Probes
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“Our civilization has decided ... that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men.... When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.”
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