NASA Hears Signal From Voyager 2 Spacecraft After mistakenly Cutting Contact

CAPE — CANAVERAL, Fla. NASA has heard from Voyager 2 in interstellar space, billions of miles away, after days of stillness.

Flight controllers delivered the erroneous command nearly two weeks ago, tilting the spacecraft’s antenna away from Earth and breaking contact.

NASA’s Deep Space Network, a global network of enormous radio antennas, picked up a “heartbeat signal,” indicating that the 46-year-old craft is still alive and well, project manager Suzanne Dodd wrote in an email Tuesday.

Dodd said the news “lifted our spirits.” Flight controllers at California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will now attempt to redirect Voyager 2’s antenna back toward Earth.

After days of stillness, NASA heard from Voyager 2 in interstellar space, billions of miles away.

If the command fails, which controllers doubt, they must wait until October for an automatic spacecraft reset. The antenna is only 2% out of alignment.

“That is a long time to wait,” Dodd replied, “so we’ll try sending up commands several times” before then.

Voyager 2 and its identical twin, Voyager 1, were launched into space in 1977 on a mission to study the outer planets.

Voyager 1 is still communicating and functioning well, and it is currently 15 billion miles (24 billion km) beyond Earth, making it the furthest distant spacecraft.

Voyager 2 is more than 12 billion miles (19 billion km) away from its twin in interstellar space. A signal takes more than 18 hours to go one way at such a distance.

SOURCE – (AP)