NASA's Voyager 2 to remain out of touch with Earth until October due to wrong command
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The US space agency appears to have lost communication with the Voyager 2 probe, which has been traveling billions of kilometers away into interstellar space.
On July 21, NASA accidentally sent a series of commands to the spacecraft that titled its antenna away from Earth.
As per NASA release, the antenna direction shifted by just 2 degrees, but it was enough to disrupt communications between the spacecraft and its Deep Space Network (DSN) ground antennas in Canberra, Australia.
As a result, the Voyager 2 is now unable to receive mission control commands or relay data back to Earth.
NASA may regain contact by October 18
Voyager 2 is currently 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) distant from Earth. This vast distance may muddle matters further. A signal from so far away takes more than 18 hours to reach Earth.
Since the connection outage, the massive DSN antennas have been actively searching for any stray signals that the Voyager 2 may have transmitted.
The mission team plans to shoot out a series of commands via the DSN antenna to Voyager 2's close surroundings in the coming week. If lucky, the command will reach the proper software target on the spacecraft, allowing it to regain contact.
You might have heard... Voyager 2 is taking a break from sending data until October. In the meantime, I'm out here, almost 15 billion miles (24 billion km) from Earth and doing fine! - V1
— NASA Voyager (@NASAVoyager) July 28, 2023
More info from our team: https://t.co/S3BFRo9Va9
Otherwise, the next opportunity to reestablish contact with the spacecraft will be in October.
Voyager 2 is configured to reset its orientation on its own at particular periods of the year. This allows it to maintain its antenna pointed at Earth at all times.
This next orientation will take place on October 15, allowing the mission team to reestablish communication.
During the quiet time, the spacecraft will continue to function independently and remain on its planned trajectory.
Voyager 2 was launched in August 1977 and examined the outer solar system planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune on its route to deep space.
After finding new Uranian moons and one on Jupiter, it ventured into interstellar space in 2018.
Voyager 2 is the exact twin of Voyager 1, which launched almost simultaneously in September 1977.
Voyager 1 is humanity’s most distant spacecraft, at over 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth.
The ground mission team is still in touch with the spacecraft, which functions normally.
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