Voyager 1 Radio Signals Will Take 24 Hours to Reach Spacecraft

Radiosignals traveling to NASA’s Voyager 1 will take a full 24 hours to reach the spacecraft on Wednesday, November 18, crossing a distance where light needs an entire day to complete the journey, according to radioh.no.

Launched on September 5, 1977, Voyager 1 stands as the furthest human-made object from Earth, operating deep in interstellar space beyond the planetary orbits. Phys.org and the Associated Press reported on November 14, 2026, that the probe currently sits more than 26 billion kilometers away, pushing toward a historic milestone in space exploration.

Because radio waves and light travel at approximately 299,792 kilometers per second in a vacuum, covering nearly 25.9 billion kilometers takes 24 hours. Commands sent from NASA control centers require an entire day to arrive at the spacecraft. Any immediate reply from the probe demands another 24-hour wait, stretching a single round-trip communication session to roughly 48 hours, as reported by radioh.no.

Built originally to investigate Jupiter and Saturn, the spacecraft flew past Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980 before pushing outward through the solar system. In 2012, Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause, marking the exact boundary where the solar wind meets the interstellar medium between the stars.

Onboard computers designed in the 1970s still manage the craft today, relying on NASA’s Deep Space Network of large radio antennas in the United States, Spain, and Australia to pick up extremely faint signals. Radioisotope thermoelectric generators convert heat from decaying plutonium into electricity to power the mission, though declining power output has forced NASA to shut down several instruments over time.

A golden record remains secured to the spacecraft, carrying sounds, images, music, and greetings in 55 languages designed to communicate Earth’s history if an intelligent civilization ever intercepts it. Traveling at about 17 kilometers per second relative to the Sun, Voyager 1 will pass within roughly 1.6 lysår of the star Gliese 445 in about 40,000 years before continuing its drift through the Milky Way for millions or billions of years.