NASA has successfully regained full contact with Voyager 2 by utilizing its highest-power transmitter to send an “interstellar shout” that corrected the distant probe’s antenna orientation, as announced by the space agency on Friday.
Launched in 1977 with the purpose of exploring the outer planets and representing humanity to the wider universe, Voyager 2 is currently positioned more than 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) away from Earth, far beyond the solar system.
A series of planned commands sent to the spacecraft on July 21 inadvertently caused the antenna to deviate two degrees away from Earth, compromising its ability to transmit and receive signals and jeopardizing its mission.
Initially, the situation was not expected to be resolved until at least October 15, when Voyager 2 was scheduled to perform an automated realignment maneuver.
However, on Tuesday, engineers sought assistance from multiple Earth observatories that make up the Deep Space Network (DSN) to detect a carrier or “heartbeat” wave from Voyager 2, although the signal was still too weak to interpret the data it carried.
2023-08-05 21:00:03
Article from phys.org