abstract:An interstellar probe is a space probe that has left—or is expected to leave—the Solar System and enter interstellar space, typically defined as the region beyond the heliopause. It also refers to probes capable of reaching star systems other than the Sun's (capable of interstellar travel within a galaxy).
Althoughitclearlydepends onwhatplanetsmay bediscovered in the coming years, my money is on the alphaCentauri system as the destination for humanity's firstinterstellarprobe.
It would be an understatement to say there's been a long build-up to the moment when Voyager 1 ventures into interstellar space: scientists thought the probe was on the edge back in 2010, and we've been waiting for the official milestone ever since.
The Voyager project scientist at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Ed Stone, said he wanted to see a reorientation of the magnetic fields around the probe before declaring it to be in interstellar space.