CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — After days of silence, NASA has heard from Voyager 2 in interstellar house billions of miles away.
Flight controllers unintentionally despatched a improper command practically two weeks in the past that tilted the spacecraft’s antenna away from Earth and severed contact.
NASA’s Deep Space Network, large radio antennas throughout the globe, picked up a “heartbeat signal,” which means the 46-year-old craft is alive and working, venture supervisor Suzanne Dodd mentioned in an electronic mail Tuesday.
The information “buoyed our spirits,” Dodd mentioned. Flight controllers on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California will now attempt to flip Voyager 2’s antenna again towards Earth.
If the command doesn’t work — and controllers doubt it’s going to — they’ll have to attend till October for an automated spacecraft reset. The antenna is barely 2% off-kilter.
“That is a long time to wait, so we’ll try sending up commands several times” earlier than then, Dodd mentioned.
Voyager 2 rocketed into house in 1977, together with its similar twin Voyager 1, on a quest to discover the outer planets.
Still speaking and dealing tremendous, Voyager 1 is now 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, making it essentially the most distant spacecraft.
Voyager 2 trails its twin in interstellar house at greater than 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from Earth. At that distance, it takes greater than 18 hours for a sign to journey a technique.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”