Voyager 2

Voyager 2

Voyager 2 is an unmanned interplanetary spacecraft. Voyager 2 was launched in August, 1977.

It is identical to its sister Voyager program craft, Voyager 1, but unlike Voyager 1, Voyager 2 followed a slower trajectory that allowed it to be kept in the ecliptic (the plane of the Solar System) that allowed the spacecraft to be sent to Uranus and Neptune by means of gravity assist during the 1981 encounter at Saturn. Because of this, Voyager 2 could not see the moon Titan up close unlike its twin, but it allowed the probe to become the first spacecraft to travel to Uranus and Neptune, thus completing a portion of so-called Planetary Grand Tour, a rare geometric arrangement of the outer planets that only occurs once every 176 years.