NASA Finally Restores Communication with Voyager 2 After Two Weeks

"NASA has reestablished full communications with Voyager 2," according to a mission update posted Friday:The agency's Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia, sent the equivalent of an interstellar "shout" more than 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) to Voyager 2, instructing the spacecraft to reorient itself and turn its antenna back to Earth. With a one-way light time of 18.5 hours for the command to reach Voyager, it took 37 hours for mission controllers to learn whether the command worked. At 12:29 a.m. EDT on Aug. 4, the spacecraft began returning science and telemetry data, indicating it is operating normally and that it remains on its expected trajectory. "Had the Earth-based signals not reached Voyager 2, the spacecraft is already programmed to reorient itself multiple times a year to keep its antenna pointing in our planet's direction," CNN points out. "The next reset was already scheduled for October 15. But the team didn't want to wait that long..." After controllers sent the wrong command to the 46-year-old spacecraft, Voyager 2's antenna needed to be shifted "a mere 2 degrees," notes The Associated Press: Voyager 2 has been hurtling through space since its launch in 1977 to explore the outer solar system. Launched two weeks later, its twin, Voyager 1, is now the most distant spacecraft - 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away - and still in contact. As long as their plutonium power holds, the Voyagers may be alive and well for the 50th anniversary of their launch in 2027, according to Dodd. Among the scientific tidbits they've beamed back in recent years include details about the interstellar magnetic field and the abundance of cosmic rays.

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