Mission announcement

Voyager 1 is about to be a full day away by radio

NASA announced public events ahead of the spacecraft reaching one light-day from Earth on November 18.

Briefed November 11, 2026 · Aliens in the Clouds

Official mission update · Milestone forecast

NASA and JPL-Caltech artist’s concept of a Voyager spacecraft in interstellar space. — Illustrative artwork accompanying this report.

NASA’s November 10 announcement sets out plans to mark Voyager 1’s next distance milestone. On November 18, the spacecraft will be about 16 billion miles away. At that distance a radio transmission takes a day to travel in either direction, so an immediate reply would still be roughly two days in transit.

NASA invites the public to flash Voyager’s call sign in Morse code on November 17 as a symbolic salute, and plans a public discussion on November 19. The spacecraft, launched in 1977, already operates beyond the heliosphere, the region dominated by the solar wind.

Why it matters

For anyone thinking about communication across interstellar space, Voyager turns signal delay into something human-sized. A conversation with our own spacecraft already takes days.

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