The next spacecraft to cross into interstellar space may reach the Sun’s outer boundary much faster than Voyager—but that is not the same as traveling to another star. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 crossed the heliopause, the boundary between the solar wind bubble and the surrounding interstellar medium. Neither has reached another star, and neither has left the solar system’s full gravitational reach.
What “interstellar spacecraft” means
The phrase describes two very different achievements. A spacecraft can enter the local interstellar medium by crossing the heliopause, where the Sun’s outward-flowing solar wind gives way to the surrounding interstellar environment. A spacecraft bound for another star would have to travel vastly farther, and the sources cited here do not establish an approved mission or timetable for doing so.
Crossing the heliopause is not the same as escaping the solar system. NASA’s 2018 account said Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 had left the heliosphere but “have not yet left the solar system”; the solar system’s outer boundary lies beyond the distant Oort Cloud. NASA’s Voyager 2 announcement explains this distinction.
What Voyager has already shown
Voyager’s crossings are flight milestones, not interstellar-star journeys. NASA reports that Voyager 1 entered interstellar space on Aug. 25, 2012, at about 122 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun. Voyager 2 crossed on Nov. 5, 2018. One AU is the average distance between Earth and the Sun.
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The crossings were identified through measurements of the changing environment, not simply by distance from the Sun. Voyager 2’s plasma instrument recorded a steep decline in the speed of solar-wind particles at the boundary. Voyager 1’s plasma instrument had stopped working before its crossing, so its crossing was confirmed using other measurements, including plasma-wave data. NASA’s Interstellar Mission page describes the mission phases and evidence.
The contrast in travel time matters when judging faster-probe proposals: Voyager took about 35 years to reach roughly 121 AU, according to a NASA E-Sail article published in the 2015-era. That is historical flight experience, not a controlled propulsion comparison with a new vehicle. NASA’s E-Sail article gives that Voyager comparison.
Rank #2
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How an electric sail might reach the heliopause sooner
How the concept works
NASA’s Heliopause Electrostatic Rapid Transit System (HERTS) concept uses a rotating spacecraft with long, positively charged wires. The wires deflect positively charged protons in the solar wind; the exchange of momentum could push the spacecraft outward. Unlike a conventional sail that relies on sunlight, the proposed thrust comes from interaction with solar-wind particles.
NASA described a projected heliopause trip of just under 10 years. Bruce Wiegmann, identified by NASA as a NASA engineer and HERTS principal investigator, said, “Our investigation has shown that an interstellar probe mission propelled by an E-Sail could travel to the heliopause in just under 10 years.” This is a dated concept projection, not a demonstrated flight duration, an operational capability, or a mission commitment. NASA’s HERTS account also said the concept had a low technology readiness level and needed additional development. See the NASA Marshall HERTS overview and NASA’s E-Sail technology article.
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What the estimate does—and does not—tell us
The under-10-year estimate concerns reaching the heliopause, not arriving at another star. It cannot be treated as a promised schedule or directly compared with Voyager as if both were completed missions: Voyager’s roughly 35-year journey to about 121 AU is a historical result, while HERTS’s shorter figure is a modelled concept estimate. The cited NASA material does not establish a current funded HERTS mission, launch date, or flight-tested performance.
What a mission to another star would still need
Crossing the heliopause is a meaningful science objective in its own right: it allows measurements of the local interstellar environment just beyond the solar wind bubble. Reaching another star is a separate engineering challenge. A useful comparison of proposed designs would need to establish each craft’s destination and science goals, propulsion and energy source, payload mass and travel time, technology readiness and test history, and how it would communicate and return data.
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The available NASA material does not provide enough current, comparable mission designs to rank concepts on those measures. NASA TechPort search material has described PROCSIMA, a diffractionless beamed-propulsion concept intended for interstellar missions, but that record alone does not establish an approved mission or flight schedule. It should be understood as a concept, not evidence that a beamed-propulsion mission is underway.
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The defensible near-term outlook is narrower than the phrase “interstellar spacecraft” can suggest. Concepts such as HERTS explore ways to send probes to the heliopause faster than Voyager, while Voyager continues to provide the clearest example of a spacecraft operating in the local interstellar medium. The cited sources do not establish which future interstellar-probe missions are currently funded, approved, or scheduled, or when any such craft will launch. Claims about a specific future launch or arrival date therefore require confirmation from a current primary source.
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As Voyager project scientist Ed Stone put it in NASA’s Dec. 10, 2018, announcement of Voyager 2’s crossing, “There is still a lot to learn about the region of interstellar space immediately beyond the heliopause.” That scientific frontier is not the same as another star system.
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