Academy Of Athens Hosts NASA Science Leaders For Voyager At 49

A signal from Earth currently takes 23 hours and 50 minutes to reach Voyager 1. On November 18, 2026, at 12:16:07 Greek time, that travel time will reach exactly 24 hours for the first time. The spacecraft will then be about 26 billion kilometers away, a distance light covers in one day. This milestone gives its name to the conference “Voyager: One Light Day,” organized by the Academy of Athens on Tuesday, November 10, from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., in the Ceremony Hall of its main building (28 Panepistimiou Street).

NASA’s two Voyager spacecraft were launched in 1977 and have been traveling for 49 years. In the late 1970s and the 1980s, they flew past the gas giants of the solar system. They then continued toward its outer edges, and since 2012 (Voyager 1) and 2018 (Voyager 2), they have been traveling through interstellar space. No other mission has reached that far, and according to the Academy, none is expected to for at least the next three decades. Voyager 1 is moving at about 17 kilometers per second and is nearly 172 astronomical units from the Sun.

In 2027, the missions will mark half a century, the same year the Academy of Athens celebrates its 100th anniversary. The connection is not only symbolic. Greece takes part in the Voyager program through the Academy’s Space Research and Technology Center (KEDET).

The Speakers

The speakers include figures who have shaped American space science in recent decades.

Nicola Fox: Head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, she will present the agency’s perspective on Voyager, the Parker Solar Probe and the Interstellar Probe.

Thomas Zurbuchen: Her predecessor and the longest-serving head of the directorate (2016-2022), now a professor at ETH Zurich. The James Webb Space Telescope, the Perseverance rover and the DART mission were launched during his tenure.

Lennard Fisk: Former head of NASA’s Space Science and Applications, during the period when the Hubble telescope was built and launched. He will speak about Voyager as “a testament to persistence and chance.”

Ralph McNutt Jr.: Chief Space Scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and a member of two Voyager science teams. He will tell the story of the missions.

The Greek presence is strong.

Stamatios Krimigis: Academician and former president of the Academy, supervisor of KEDET, he will take the audience on a journey “from the Sun to the Galaxy” through the Parker Solar Probe, Cassini, NEAR, DART and Voyager missions.

He is the only scientist in the world who has built instruments that explored all eight planets of the solar system, as well as Pluto. In 1999, the International Astronomical Union named asteroid 8323 Krimigis after him.

Kostas Dialynas: Director of KEDET and a member of the team behind Voyager’s LECP instrument, he will summarize the science produced by the missions from 1977 to today.
Nikos Sergis: CEO of the Hellenic Space Center, he will speak about how Greek scientific excellence can become part of a national space strategy.
Athena Coustenis: Research director at CNRS at the Paris Observatory and chair of COSPAR’s Panel on Planetary Protection, she will present the European perspective on safe and sustainable space exploration.
The Pioneers’ “Code”
The conference will close with a screening of the 30-minute film “The Pioneers Code: Lessons Learned,” introduced by Zurbuchen. The film examines how a major space mission is conceived and managed. It will be followed by a roundtable with Fisk, Zurbuchen, McNutt and Krimigis, moderated by science journalist Nadia Drake.

Source: tovima.com