NASA's interstellar Voyager 2 probe resumes communication with Earth
By Elizabeth Howell last updated about 3 hours ago
The spacecraft is healthy and has reestablished full communications with Earth.
An artist's depiction of a Voyager probe entering interstellar space. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Voyager 2 has reestablished communication with Earth and is operating normally.
NASA's long-running Voyager 2 mission, which launched from Earth in 1977 and is currently about 12.4 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) from Earth, lost contact with our planet after a set of commands accidentally moved Voyager 2's antenna two degrees away from Earth on July 28.
A "heartbeat" signal was picked up on Tuesday (Aug. 1) according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), letting mission controllers know the probe was still healthy despite being unable to communicate fully with it. Voyager 2 is programmed to automatically reset its orientation a few times a year in case of troubles like this, but the next window would have been in October.
On Friday (Aug. 4), JPL announced in a mission update that NASA's Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia was able to send a command into interstellar space that reoriented the spacecraft and pointed its antenna back towards Earth. Mission controllers had to wait 37 hours to learn if the command was successful. And it was.
"The spacecraft began returning science and telemetry data, indicating it is operating normally and that it remains on its expected trajectory," JPL said in the statement.
More:
https://www.space.com/voyager-2-interstellar-probe-resumes-communication
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