NASA Listens for Voyager 2 Spacecraft After Incorrect Command Cuts Contact

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA is listening for any peep from Voyager 2 after shedding contact with the spacecraft billions of miles away.

Hurtling ever deeper into interstellar area, Voyager 2 has been out of contact ever since flight controllers by chance despatched a fallacious command greater than per week in the past that tilted its antenna away from Earth. The spacecraft’s antenna shifted a mere 2%, but it surely was sufficient to chop communications.

Though it’s thought of an extended shot, NASA mentioned Monday that its large dish antenna in Canberra, Australia, is looking out for any stray alerts from Voyager 2, at present greater than 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) distant. It takes greater than 18 hours for a sign to achieve Earth from so far-off.

Within the coming week, the Canberra antenna — a part of NASA’s Deep Area Community — additionally will bombard Voyager 2’s neighborhood with the proper command, in hopes it hits its mark, in line with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the Voyager missions.

In any other case, NASA must wait till October for an computerized spacecraft reset that ought to restore communication, in line with officers.

Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 to discover the outer planets, only a couple weeks forward of its equivalent twin, Voyager 1.

Nonetheless in contact with Earth, Voyager 1 is now practically 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away, making it humanity’s most distant spacecraft.

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