Voyager spacecraft leaving Solar System, illustration. Two Voyager spacecraft (Voyager 1 and Voyager 2) were launched in 1977. This timing took advantage of a rare alignment of the four giant outer planets Jupiter to Neptune, which made it possible for the spacecraft to visit them in a single mission. The probes successfully beamed images and scientific data back to Earth using their dish. Voyager 1 is currently 139 AU (as of July 2017) from the Earth ??one of the most distant man-made objects in space. In this illustration one of the probes is seen leaving the Solar System, its long mission among the planets at and end.