NASA is currently actively listening for any signals from Voyager 2, the spacecraft that is millions of miles away, after losing contact with it.
Voyager 2 has been traveling deeper into interstellar space, but it lost contact after flight controllers mistakenly sent a wrong command that shifted its antenna away from Earth. The antenna only shifted by a small 2% amount, but it was enough to disrupt communication.
Despite the odds being against it, NASA announced on Monday that its large dish antenna in Canberra, Australia, is on high alert, scanning for any unexpected signals from Voyager 2. Currently, Voyager 2 is more than 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) away, so it takes over 18 hours for a signal to reach Earth.
In the coming week, the Canberra antenna, which is part of NASA’s Deep Space Network, will also send the correct command to Voyager 2 in the hopes of re-establishing contact with the spacecraft, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the Voyager missions.
If this attempt fails, NASA will have to wait until October for an automatic spacecraft reset that is expected to restore communication, according to officials.
Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 with the mission of exploring the outer planets, closely following its identical twin spacecraft, Voyager 1.
Voyager 1, currently over 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away, is still in communication with Earth, holding the title of humanity’s most distant spacecraft.
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NASA listens for Voyager 2 spacecraft after wrong command cuts contact (2023, July 31)
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