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End of 46-year-old mission? NASA loses contact with Voyager 2 after sending wrong command

Since flight controllers accidentally sent the wrong command more than a week ago that tilted Voyager 2's antenna away from Earth, the spacecraft has been drifting further and further into interstellar space.

Nitin Kumar Edited By: Nitin Kumar Canberra Published on: August 01, 2023 17:10 IST
Voyager 2 spacecraft, NASA
Image Source : AP/FILE PHOTO Voyager 2 spacecraft in the Safe-1 Building at the Kennedy Space Center

The Voyager 2 space probe, the second-farthest human-made object sent into space, has temporarily lost contact with NASA. It is currently separated from Earth by more than 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers). In a statement, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said that scientists lost contact with the space test on July 21 after a progression of arranged orders coincidentally made Voyager 2 angle its antenna away from Earth. Even though the spacecraft's antenna moved only 2%, it was enough to stop communication.

Since flight controllers accidentally sent the wrong command more than a week ago that tilted Voyager 2's antenna away from Earth, the spacecraft has been drifting further and further into interstellar space.

In spite of the fact that it's viewed as a long shot, NASA said Monday that its tremendous dish antenna in Canberra, Australia, is keeping watch for any wanderer signals from Voyager 2, which is currently more than 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) away. A signal from this far away can take more than 18 hours to reach Earth.

In the coming week, the Canberra antenna, a part of NASA's Deep Space Network, will likewise barrage Voyager 2's area with the right command, in trust it hits its imprint, as per NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which deals with the Voyager missions.

If not, NASA should hold on until October for an automatic spacecraft reset that ought to reestablish communication, as per authorities. In order to investigate the outer planets, Voyager 2 was launched in 1977, just a few weeks before its identical twin, Voyager 1. Voyager 1, humanity's most distant spacecraft, is nearly 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away and still in contact with Earth.

Also read | NASA official urges India to join US-led Artemis Accords ahead of PM Modi's visit to US

Also read | This July likely to be Earth's hottest month on record, claims leading NASA climate expert | KNOW THE REASON

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