Voyager 2, launched August 20, 1977, visited Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1981 and Uranus in 1986 before making its closest approach to Neptune on August 25, 1989. NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft gave humanity its first glimpse of Neptune and its moon Triton in the summer of 1989. 1989: Voyager 2 makes its closest encounter with Neptune, passing just 3,000 miles above the cloud tops of the most distant planet in our solar system.