On Friday, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory introduced that that they had misplaced contact with Voyager 2, which is over 12 billion miles from Earth. Engineers on the bottom despatched an incorrect command to the spacecraft July 21 that knocked its antenna 2 levels away from the Earth. That made it inconceivable for the mission group to ship or obtain alerts.However on Tuesday morning, officers from the Deep Area Community, a world system used to function quite a few energetic house missions, detected a provider sign from Voyager 2. Meaning the spacecraft remains to be broadcasting, though the sign is simply too weak for transmitting knowledge.
Background: A protracted, unusual journey via the photo voltaic systemVoyager 2 launched to house Aug. 20, 1977, to take a tour of our photo voltaic system’s outer planets. It’s the one spacecraft to have visited Uranus and Neptune, and the second mission to cross the boundary that separates our photo voltaic system from the remainder of the Milky Means, an space generally known as interstellar house.This isn’t the primary time NASA has misplaced the flexibility to speak to the spacecraft. In 2020, scientists managing the Deep Area Community shut down the only radio dish able to speaking to Voyager 2 for repairs and upgrades. When it got here again on-line in March 2021, the Voyager 2 was nonetheless functioning.A couple of weeks after Voyager 2 started its journey, NASA launched its twin, Voyager 1, which adopted a distinct trajectory and reached interstellar house first. Mission specialists are nonetheless involved with that spacecraft.Why It Issues: A mission that simply retains goingWhile the spacecraft is sort of 46 years into its journey, it continues to supply helpful scientific knowledge about how the surroundings adjustments exterior our photo voltaic system, and the way the heliosphere — a bubble of radiation from our solar — interacts with interstellar house.But when one thing goes flawed earlier than scientists get better communications with the spacecraft, they don’t have any approach of fixing it. That’s an even bigger concern than what scientific knowledge is likely to be misplaced within the close to time period, a spokesperson for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory mentioned.Earlier this 12 months, Voyager 2 switched to operating its 5 devices on backup energy to extend the lifetime of the mission. Scientists anticipate that one in every of these devices will must be shut down fully in 2026, and others in successive years, to maintain the mission functioning for so long as attainable.What’s Subsequent: The folks of Earth can waitThe mission’s managers will try to make use of the Deep Area Community on Wednesday to ship Voyager 2 a command to reorient the path of its antenna again towards Earth, based on the laboratory spokesperson. It is going to take about 18 hours for the sign to reach on the spacecraft, and one other 18 earlier than scientists on Earth will know if it labored.If the command fails, scientists should wait till Oct. 15. On that day, the mission’s laptop is programmed to mechanically level the antenna again towards Earth, which they hope will restore communications.“It’s a 46-year-old spacecraft — we don’t like being out of contact with it,” the spokesperson mentioned. “However, it’s 46. It’s performed properly thus far. So we now have a number of confidence that it’ll be OK.”
