As of September 2024, Voyager 1 is the most distant operational spacecraft at 164 AU from Earth. When it stops functioning or is overtaken by another spacecraft, which spacecraft will inherit this title?
"Operational" is defined as either a) being able to receive and follow commands from Earth, or b) transmitting useful data that is received and processed.
IHP-1 and IHP-2 are probes from the Chinese Shensuo program, to be launched in 2025.
I do not bet on my own questions.
Related question:
1,000
3.00Important context: Voyager 1 is the fastest of them all, and New Horizons is the slowest, so they are never switching places—Voyager 1 will always be the furthest, then Voyager 2, then New Horizons.
There is a market that thinks that the chance of Voyager 2 outlasting Voyager 1 is 74%, which is almost equivalent to the 74% probability of Voyager 2 becoming the next most distant operational spacecraft. The possibility that there will be some other spacecraft that will overtake Voyager 2 by the time Voyager 1 breaks down seems very low to me.
[Edited: I wrote this comment before IHP-1 and IHP-2 were added, but they don't change much. "The goal of the spacecraft is to have travelled a total of 100 astronomical units by 2049" (Wikipedia), i.e. Voyager 1 will likely have been long gone when (if ever) they can compete with Voyager 2 and NH]