NASA has reestablished reference to Voyager 2 after a tense two weeks of not listening to something from the probe. On July twenty first, the company misplaced contact with Voyager 2 following a collection of deliberate instructions that mistakenly pointed it two levels away from our planet. Whereas it’s scheduled to robotically reset its orientation on October fifteenth, it isn’t shocking that NASA scientists did not simply look ahead to that date to know whether or not the spacecraft continues to be operating. Voyager 2 was launched method again in 1977, and it is one of many solely two probes sending us again beneficial information on interstellar house.
For a couple of days after July twenty first, NASA wasn’t even certain what the spacecraft’s situation was. It wasn’t till August 1st that a number of floor antennas from the Deep House Community (DSN) have been in a position to detect a provider sign from the probe. A provider sign is what a spacecraft makes use of to beam information again to the bottom, however NASA mentioned the one DSN detected was too weak to have the ability to transmit any info. Nonetheless, it was sufficient to verify that Voyager 2 was nonetheless working and that it hadn’t deviated from its trajectory.
As a substitute of merely ready for October, Voyager’s floor workforce determined to take motion. They concocted a plan to “shout” a command to the spacecraft throughout over 12.3 billion miles of house utilizing the DSN, telling it to show its antenna again to Earth. The entire course of illustrated simply how huge outer house actually is: It took 18.5 hours for that message to achieve the probe, and one other 18.5 hours for NASA to begin receiving science and telemetry information once more, indicating that Voyager 2 had obtained the command.
This is not the primary time NASA has had points with the spacecraft. In 2020, it needed to provide tech assistance from billions of miles away after it tripped a system that shut off its scientific gear to preserve electrical energy. Voyager 2 entered interstellar space — meaning it exited the plasma bubble created by our solar — again in 2018, turning into the second human-made object to take action after Voyager 1. Though NASA believes that each Voyager 1 and a couple of might stay involved with the DSN till 2036, it additionally says that “science information will not doubtless be collected after 2025.” The spacecraft might solely be offering us info on interstellar house for lower than two years, so it stands to cause that scientists do not wish to waste a single day it might ship information again to Earth.
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