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According to the NASA Website, the Voyager probes will begin powering down electrical components soon with all electronic functions ceasing some time around 2025.

With no ability to transmit back to earth and thus of 0 value in the Interstellar Medium...

...could either one (or both) of the Voyagers be directed back to Earth at all before electronic shut down?

If not; do aerospace engineers have any idea where either (or both) of the probes may end up?

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    $\begingroup$ No. They simply don,t have the fuel needed to change course that radically. But you might want to ask on the Space Exploration SE anyway. $\endgroup$
    – user_1818839
    Feb 22, 2017 at 23:12
  • $\begingroup$ "do aerospace engineers have any idea where either (or both) of the probes may end up?" Sure. they predicted the trajectory of the useful missions accurately enough - they didn't happen just by good luck! Credible predictions of the dynamics of the solar system as a whole have been made for about 1 billion years into the future. So it is possible to predict what happens to the Voyagers, but it may not be interesting to do it in any detail. $\endgroup$
    – alephzero
    Feb 23, 2017 at 1:58

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...could either one (or both) of the Voyagers be directed back to Earth at all before electronic shut down?

No. It would be impossible since these satellites do not carry any type of course changing propellant. According to Wikipedia the Voyager satellites carry 16 hydrazine thrusters that are only used to reorient the satellite. This satellite was made to be like a bullet. Once it left the rocket that got it off earth it was only affected by gravity.

do aerospace engineers have any idea where either (or both) of the probes may end up?

Yes we do know where the probes are going. The short answer is nowhere in particular. Space is much more empty than many people can even fathom. The long answer is that in 300 years it will reach the Oort cloud which itself is theoretical and after that 40,000 years till it passes relatively close to a star. A mere 1.6 light years will separate them!

These probes were not made to return to earth. They were designed to capture and return data to earth as they traveled out of our solar system.

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