Voyager 2 made the first close flyby of Uranus in January 1986.
NASA launched Voyager 2 on August 20, 1977, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Its trajectory allowed it to visit the outer planets using gravity-assist flybys, a technique that changes a spacecraft’s speed and direction without using equivalent amounts of rocket fuel.
The spacecraft passed closest to Uranus on January 24, 1986, coming within about 81,500 kilometres of the planet’s cloud tops. It discovered 10 previously unknown moons, examined Uranus’s faint ring system, and revealed details about the planet’s unusual magnetic field and atmosphere.
Voyager 1 did not visit Uranus; it was directed toward Saturn’s moon Titan and then left the planetary-tour route. Voyager 2 later became the first spacecraft to fly past Neptune, in 1989.