NASA, PBS marking 40 years since Voyager spacecraft launches

FILE - In this Aug. 4, 1977 photo provided by NASA, the "Sounds of Earth" record is mounted on the Voyager 2 spacecraft in the Safe-1 Building at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., prior to encapsulation in the protective shroud. Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017 marks the 40th anniversary of NASA's launch of Voyager 2, now almost 11 billion miles distant. (AP Photo/NASA) FILE - In this Aug. 4, 1977 photo provided by NASA, the "Sounds of Earth" record is mounted on the Voyager 2 spacecraft in the Safe-1 Building at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., prior to encapsulation in the protective shroud. Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017 marks the 40th anniversary of NASA's launch of Voyager 2, now almost 11 billion miles distant. (AP Photo/NASA)

By Associated Press August 18, 2017 1 min read

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – Forty years after blasting off, Earth’s most distant ambassadors – the twin Voyager spacecraft – are still going.

This Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of NASA’s launch of Voyager 2, now almost 11 billion miles distant.

It left Cape Canaveral, Florida on Aug. 20, 1977 to explore Jupiter and Saturn.

Voyager 1 followed a few weeks later and is ahead of Voyager 2. It’s humanity’s farthest spacecraft at 13 billion miles away and is the world’s only craft to reach interstellar space, or the space between stars.

Each spacecraft carries a phonograph record containing messages from Earth.