NASA is making an attempt to reestablish contact with Voyager 2 after it despatched a improper command to the spacecraft and misplaced communication with it, stories The Guardian.
The spacecraft, flying deep into interstellar area billions of miles away from Earth, was by accident despatched a improper command greater than every week in the past by flight controllers, and has since then been out of contact.
The command brought on Voyager 2’s antenna to shift a mere 2 % away from Earth, but it surely was nonetheless sufficient to chop communications, the report learn.
On Monday, NASA stated its big dish antenna in Canberra was on the lookout for any stray alerts from Voyager 2.
The spacecraft, greater than 12 billion miles (19 billion km) away, will take over 18 hours to convey a sign to Earth from that distance.
NASA launched Voyager 2 from Florida in 1977 only a couple weeks forward of its an identical twin — Voyager 1 — to check the outer photo voltaic system in addition to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
In 2018 Voyager 2 entered interstellar space, and had by then found quite a lot of new moons on Uranus and one on Jupiter, The Guardian report learn.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the Voyager missions, revealed that the Canberra antenna, which is a part of Nasa’s Deep House Community, can even ship the proper command to Voyager 2’s neighborhood subsequent week within the hope that it hits its mark.
Within the occasion that the measures fail, NASA must wait till October this yr for an automated spacecraft reset that ought to restore communication, based on officers.
Voyager 1, which continues to be in contact with Earth, is now humanity’s most distant spacecraft at practically 15 billion miles (24 billion km) away, the report added.
