The Voyager probes are identical from the point of view of the the technical assembly. Voyager 2 was launched on the 20th of August 1977, a few days before Voyager 1 which was launches on the 5th of September. Voyager 1 reached Jupiter first though on the 5th of March 1979. After exploring the 4 large planets of the solar system, they both remain active with Voyager 1 now being the furthest man made object in the solar system at 100 AU relative to the the Sun(3 times further than Pluto). It has reached the heliopause, the limit of the Sun's radius of influence on its surroundings. The energy that feeds the Probe will run out some time around 2020.

The major objective of these probes was the study of the gas planets, their rings and satellites. Voyager 1 passed through Jupiter and Saturn's systems, discovering the volcanic activity on Io as it flew by and the rings around Jupiter and showed the complexity of Saturn's. It was decides that the probe would not go all the way to Uranus and Neptune so as to better study Titan, the largest of Saturn's satellites. On the other hand, Voyager 2 visited these two planets and explored Uranus and Neptune. The photo's from Voyager 2 are the only existing images of the ice satellites of these planets.

Today the aim of the probes is to better understand the magnetic field of the Sun.