How long would it take to "catch up" to Voyager 1?

Question

If we launched a spaceprobe today, could we catch up to it? And how long would it take?

Answer 1

If we launched a probe today, we would probably use exactly the same method we used to launch Voyager.  No one is going to mount big rocket engines with lots of fuel to increase speed.  What purpose would it serve to spend millions of extra dollars.?  The planets are not in the same position today as they would have been when Voyager was launched.  Voyager used a gravitational slingshot maneuver that would very likely not be able to be used in the same direction at this particular moment.  Therefore without that speed increase, and no additional rockets, the spacecraft launched today would NEVER catch up.  

Answer 2

We already did its heading to pluto I believe i read it took days for voyager to pass the moon where the new probe only took a few hours  however its headed a diferent direction than pluto so no it will never catch up to voyager but if we were to send one twords voyager it would catch it and pass it im unsure how long it would take but i do know if they launched it today and you were young your chances of seeing this would be great try looking up space probes up on internet it may show you the probe headed to pluto

Answer 3

Depends on the speed of the spacecraft... And yes we could catch up with it.

Answer 4

Voyager is about 80astronomical units from Earth.That is twice the pluto distance. I think no rocket that can catch up with it is av ailable with Mankind.

Answer 5

Much was made about how fast New Horizons left the Earth and made it to Jupiter.  It was fast.  And the brand new Atlas 5 rocket's incredible power led to this very high speed.  Well done, Atlas 5, well done. But there are more events, and therefore more points to award.

The gravity boost that you get at Jupiter is more important.  And Voyager 1 passed closer to Jupiter than New Horizons did.  So Voyager 1 is going faster than New Horizons is.  New Horizons will never catch up.  Never.  And i'm ignoring the fact that New Horizons is going in a different direction.

Now, if our space probe were launched at just the right time in Jupiter's 12 year orbit, and it was equipped with a nuclear power source and lots of propellant, and used an upgraded ion drive that could provide some real thrust, and maybe a solar sail was used to use light pressure from the Sun, then we might get a space craft going twice as fast as Voyager 1.

Now Voyager 1 was launched in 1977 - that's 31 years ago.  So a craft going twice as fast would take at least twice as long - 62 years to catch up.  But if it takes 6 more years to launch, then it will take 74 years to catch up.