Which spacecraft first flew past Uranus?

Voyager 2 was the first spacecraft to fly past Uranus.

NASA’s Voyager 2 made its closest approach to Uranus on January 24, 1986, passing about 81,500 kilometers above the planet’s cloud tops. It remains the only spacecraft to have visited Uranus at close range. The encounter revealed a complex atmosphere, a tilted magnetic field, rings, and previously unknown moons.

Voyager 2 also discovered new details about Uranus’s narrow ring system and photographed its large moons, including Miranda, whose surface showed enormous cliffs and disrupted terrain. The spacecraft then continued toward Neptune, becoming the first and only spacecraft to fly past that planet as well.

Voyager 1 followed a different trajectory after its Saturn encounter and did not visit Uranus. Pioneer 10 passed Jupiter, while New Horizons flew past Pluto in 2015. Voyager 2’s Uranus encounter remains a major source of scientific knowledge about the distant ice giant.