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After a 12.3 billion-mile 'shout,' NASA regains full contact with Voyager 2

Emily Olson

Ayana Archie

A NASA image of one of the twin Voyager space probes. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory lost contact with Voyager 2 on July 21 after mistakenly pointing its antenna 2 degrees away from Earth. On Friday, contact was fully restored. NASA/Getty Images hide caption

A NASA image of one of the twin Voyager space probes. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory lost contact with Voyager 2 on July 21 after mistakenly pointing its antenna 2 degrees away from Earth. On Friday, contact was fully restored.

Talk about a long-distance call.

NASA said it resumed full communications with the Voyager 2 on Friday after almost two weeks of silence from the interstellar spacecraft.

The agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said a series of ground antennas, part of the Deep Space Network, registered a carrier signal from Voyager 2 on Tuesday. However, the signal was too faint.

A Deep Space Network facility in Australia then sent "the equivalent of an interstellar 'shout' " to the Voyager 2 telling it to turn its antenna back toward Earth. The signal was sent more than 12.3 billion miles away and it took 37 hours to get a response from the spacecraft, NASA said.

Scientists received a response at about 12:30 a.m. ET Friday. Voyager 2 is now operating normally, returning science and telemetry data, and "remains on its expected trajectory," NASA said.

NASA said Friday that it lost contact with Voyager 2 on July 21 after "a series of planned commands" inadvertently caused the craft to turn its antenna 2 degrees away from the direction of its home planet.

NASA is keeping Voyager 2 going until at least 2026 by tapping into backup power

What might seem like a slight error had big consequences: NASA previously said it wouldn't be able to communicate with the craft until October, when the satellite would go through one of its routine repositioning steps.

"That is a long time to wait, so we'll try sending up commands several times" before October, program manager Suzanne Dodd told The Associated Press.

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Even if Voyager 2 had failed to reestablish communications until fall, the engineers expected it to stay moving on its planned trajectory on the edge of the solar system.

Voyager 2 entered interstellar space in November 2018 — more than 40 years since it launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. To this day, Voyager 2 remains one of only two human-made objects to ever operate outside the heliosphere, which NASA defines as "the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields generated by the Sun."

Its primary mission was to study the outer solar system, and already, Voyager 2 has proved its status as a planetary pioneer . Equipped with several imaging instruments, the spacecraft is credited with documenting the discovery of 16 new moons, six new rings and Neptune's "Great Dark Spot."

Voyager 2 Bids Adieu To The Heliosphere, Entering Interstellar Space

Voyager 2 is also carrying some precious cargo, like a message in a bottle, should it find itself as the subject of another world's discovery: a golden record containing a variety of natural sounds, greetings in 55 languages and a 90-minute selection of music.

Last month's command mix-up foreshadows the craft's inevitable end an estimated three years from now.

"Eventually, there will not be enough electricity to power even one instrument," reads a NASA page documenting the spacecraft's travels . "Then, Voyager 2 will silently continue its eternal journey among the stars."

Meanwhile, Voyager 2's sister spacecraft, Voyager 1, is still broadcasting and transmitting data just fine from a slightly farther vantage point of 15 billion miles away.

Correction Aug. 3, 2023

A previous version of this article implied that Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in 2018 when, in fact, the spacecraft concluded its encounter with the planet and started heading toward Neptune in 1986. Voyager 2 entered interstellar space in November 2018.

• Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA restores contact with Voyager 2 spacecraft after mistake led to weeks of silence

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft was back chatting it up Friday after flight controllers corrected a mistake that had led to weeks of silence.

Hurtling ever deeper into interstellar space billions of miles away, Voyager 2  stopped communicating  two weeks ago. Controllers sent the wrong command to the 46-year-old spacecraft and tilted its antenna away from Earth.

On Wednesday, NASA’s Deep Space Network sent a new command in hopes of repointing the antenna, using the highest powered transmitter at the huge radio dish antenna in Australia. Voyager 2’s antenna needed to be shifted a mere 2 degrees.

It took more than 18 hours for the command to reach Voyager 2 — more than 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) away — and another 18 hours to hear back.

The long shot paid off. On Friday, the spacecraft started returning data again, according to officials at California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“I just sort of sighed. I melted in the chair,” project manager Suzanne Dodd told The Associated Press.

“Voyager’s back,” project scientist Linda Spilker chimed in.

Voyager 2 has been hurtling through space since its launch in 1977 to explore the outer solar system. Launched two weeks later, its twin, Voyager 1, is now the most distant spacecraft — 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away — and still in contact.

The two-week outage was believed to be the longest NASA had gone without hearing from Voyager 2, Dodd said.

As long as their plutonium power holds, the Voyagers may be alive and well for the 50th anniversary of their launch in 2027, according to Dodd. Among the scientific tidbits they’ve beamed back in recent years include details about the interstellar magnetic field and the abundance of cosmic rays.

“We’ve been very clever over the last 10 years to eke out every single little watt,” Dodd said. “Hopefully, one of them will make it to 50. But they are old and certainly events like this one that just happened scare the dickens out of me, as far as making that type of a milestone.”

The Associated Press

NASA restores contact with Voyager 2 spacecraft after mistake led to weeks of silence

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NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft was back chatting it up Friday after flight controllers corrected a mistake that had led to weeks of silence.

Hurtling ever deeper into interstellar space billions of miles away, Voyager 2 stopped communicating two weeks ago. Controllers sent the wrong command to the 46-year-old spacecraft and tilted its antenna away from Earth.

On Wednesday, NASA’s Deep Space Network sent a new command in hopes of repointing the antenna, using the highest powered transmitter at the huge radio dish antenna in Australia. Voyager 2’s antenna needed to be shifted a mere 2 degrees.

It took more than 18 hours for the command to reach Voyager 2 — more than 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) away — and another 18 hours to hear back.

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The long shot paid off. On Friday, the spacecraft started returning data again, according to officials at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge.

“I just sort of sighed. I melted in the chair,” said project manager Suzanne Dodd .

“Voyager’s back,” project scientist Linda Spilker chimed in.

Voyager 2 has been hurtling through space since its launch in 1977 to explore the outer solar system. Launched two weeks later, its twin, Voyager 1, is now the most distant spacecraft — 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away — and still in contact.

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The two-week outage was believed to be the longest NASA had gone without hearing from Voyager 2, Dodd said.

As long as their plutonium power holds, the Voyagers may be alive and well for the 50th anniversary of their launch in 2027, according to Dodd. Among the scientific tidbits they’ve beamed back in recent years include details about the interstellar magnetic field and the abundance of cosmic rays.

“We’ve been very clever over the last 10 years to eke out every single little watt,” Dodd said. “Hopefully, one of them will make it to 50. But they are old and certainly events like this one that just happened scare the dickens out of me, as far as making that type of a milestone.”

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NASA's interstellar Voyager 2 probe resumes communication with Earth

The spacecraft is healthy and has reestablished full communications with Earth.

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. 

Related: NASA Voyager 2 spacecraft extends its interstellar science mission for 3 more years

"Can you hear me now? Last night, I reestablished full communications with Earth thanks to some quick thinking and a lot of collaboration. I'm operating normally and remain on my expected trajectory," the Voyager Twitter account wrote in a statement posted to the social media platform on Friday (Aug. 4). "So glad I can finally phone home."

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Voyager 2 flew to space from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on August 20, 1977. After swinging by the four gas giant planets of the solar system between the 1970s and 1990s, it entered interstellar space on Dec. 10, 2018.

Its twin craft Voyager 1 is also operational, flying far away at about 15 billion miles (24 billion km) from Earth. It was the first object to move beyond the gravitational influence of our star, the sun , in 2012.

— After 45 years, the 5-billion-year legacy of the Voyager 2 interstellar probe is just beginning

— Voyager 2 bounces back from glitch in interstellar space

— Voyager turns 45: What the iconic mission taught us and what's next

The missions are slowly losing power from their nuclear radioisotope generators , but engineers have made several alterations to preserve their systems where possible. The heaters have been shut off, for example, and in April 2023 engineers disabled Voyager 2's surge protector (or voltage regulator).

These steps remove a bit of backup for the spacecraft while allowing their power supplies to last longer. The 2023 step alone has postponed one of the instrument shutdowns for Voyager 2 by three years, extending space data collection until at least 2026, officials said at the time.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years before joining full-time. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House and Office of the Vice-President of the United States, an exclusive conversation with aspiring space tourist (and NSYNC bassist) Lance Bass, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, " Why Am I Taller ?", is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada's Carleton University and a Bachelor of History from Canada's Athabasca University. Elizabeth is also a post-secondary instructor in communications and science at several institutions since 2015; her experience includes developing and teaching an astronomy course at Canada's Algonquin College (with Indigenous content as well) to more than 1,000 students since 2020. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut someday. Mastodon: https://qoto.org/@howellspace

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clock This article was published more than  1 year ago

‘Interstellar shout’ restores NASA contact with lost Voyager 2 spacecraft

NASA’s Voyager 2 was lost in space because of a mixed signal, but a command dubbed an “interstellar shout” and beamed across billions of miles has restored contact with the spacecraft after two weeks of silence.

Voyager 2, which left Earth nearly 46 years ago, stopped receiving or transmitting communications in July, when controllers accidentally sent a command that shifted its antenna 2 degrees away from Earth.

This week, NASA’s Deep Space Network, which consists of giant radio antennas around the world, picked up a carrier signal from the spacecraft — or what the mission team likened to a “heartbeat” that was too faint to pinpoint the probe but confirmed it was still operating, the U.S. space agency said.

So, engineers tried to send the spacecraft a command to orient itself back at Earth, and they used the highest-powered transmitter at NASA’s huge dish in the Australian capital, Canberra, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the Voyager missions.

It may have been a long shot, but they heard back. “We shouted 12.3 billion miles into interstellar space, instructing it to turn its antenna back to Earth,” the laboratory said Friday. “And after 37 hours, we found out it worked!”

Here’s how it sounds when you turn NASA spacecraft data into music

NASA said its Deep Space Network facility in Canberra “sent the equivalent of an interstellar ‘shout’” to Voyager 2 — a round-trip communication that required some 18.5 hours each way, for the command to reach the probe and to hear back.

“The spacecraft began returning science and telemetry data, indicating it is operating normally and that it remains on its expected trajectory,” NASA said in its latest update.

“I just sort of sighed. I melted in the chair,” project manager Suzanne Dodd told the Associated Press . The two-week silence was thought to be the longest NASA went without hearing from Voyager 2.

If its efforts had not succeeded, the team would have had to wait for the 46-year-old probe to automatically reset its direction in October.

Voyager 2 , whose launch anniversary is this month, took off in 1977 to sail across the solar system and in 2018 entered interstellar space , the region between the sun’s heliosphere and the astrospheres of other stars. It is the only spacecraft ever to fly by Neptune and Uranus, while its twin, Voyager 1 , now nearly 15 billion miles away, is the most distant spacecraft from Earth.

NASA restores contact with Voyager 2 spacecraft after mistake led to weeks of silence

Topic: Space Exploration

Voyager 2 was launched to space in 1977. ( AP Photo: NASA, file )

NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft is back chatting it up after flight controllers corrected a mistake that had led to weeks of silence.

Key points:

• Voyager 2 stopped communicating two weeks ago, after the wrong command tilted its antenna away from earth
• Contact was re-established with a command sent using the highest powered transmitter of a giant radio dish in Canberra
• Its the longest time without communication with the spacecraft, which was launched into the solar system in 1977

Hurtling ever deeper into interstellar space billions of miles away, Voyager 2 stopped communicating two weeks ago.

Controllers sent the wrong command to the 46-year-old spacecraft and tilted its antenna away from Earth.

NASA's Deep Space Network sent a new command in hopes of repointing the antenna, using the highest powered transmitter at the huge radio dish antenna in Canberra .

Voyager 2's antenna needed to be shifted a mere 2 degrees.

It took more than 18 hours for the command to reach Voyager 2 — more than 19 billion kilometres away — and another 18 hours to hear back.

The long shot paid off.

The spacecraft started returning data again, according to officials at California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"I just sort of sighed. I melted in the chair," project manager Suzanne Dodd told The Associated Press.

"Voyager's back," project scientist Linda Spilker chimed in.

Voyager 2 has been hurtling through space since its launch in 1977 to explore the outer solar system.

Launched two weeks later, its twin, Voyager 1, is now the most distant spacecraft — 24 billion kilometres away — and still in contact.

Voyager 2's view of Neptune, captured in August 1989. ( Supplied: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Kevin M. Gill )

The two-week outage was believed to be the longest NASA had gone without hearing from Voyager 2, Ms Dodd said.

As long as their plutonium power holds, the Voyagers may be alive and well for the 50th anniversary of their launch in 2027, according to Ms Dodd.

Among the scientific tidbits they've beamed back in recent years include details about the interstellar magnetic field and the abundance of cosmic rays.

"We've been very clever over the last 10 years to eke out every single little watt," Ms Dodd said.

"Hopefully, one of them will make it to 50. But they are old and certainly events like this one that just happened scare the dickens out of me, as far as making that type of a milestone."

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NASA’s Voyager 2 Is Out of Contact but Not Lost in Space

By Katrina Miller

Voyager 2, the aging explorer of our solar system, appears to be alive and well, NASA officials said on Tuesday. But they may not be able to communicate with the spacecraft for at least the next two months.

On Friday, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that they had lost contact with Voyager 2, which is over 12 billion miles from Earth. Engineers on the ground sent an incorrect command to the spacecraft on July 21 that knocked its antenna two degrees away from the Earth. That made it impossible for the mission team to send or receive signals.

But on Tuesday morning, officials from the Deep Space Network, a global system used to operate numerous active space missions, detected a carrier signal from Voyager 2. That means the spacecraft is still broadcasting, though the signal is too weak for transmitting data.

Background: A long, strange trip through the solar system

Voyager 2 launched to space on Aug. 20, 1977, to take a tour of our solar system’s outer planets . It’s the only spacecraft to have visited Uranus and Neptune, and the second mission to cross the boundary that separates our solar system from the rest of the Milky Way, an area commonly referred to as interstellar space.

This isn’t the first time NASA has lost the ability to talk to the spacecraft. In 2020, scientists managing the Deep Space Network shut down the sole radio dish capable of talking to Voyager 2 for repairs and upgrades. When it came back online in March 2021, the Voyager 2 was still functioning.

A few weeks after Voyager 2 began its journey, NASA launched its twin, Voyager 1, which followed a different trajectory and reached interstellar space first . Mission specialists are still in contact with that spacecraft.

Why It Matters: A mission that just keeps going

While the spacecraft is nearly 46 years into its journey, it continues to produce useful scientific data about how the environment changes outside of our solar system, and how the heliosphere — a bubble of radiation from our sun — interacts with interstellar space.

But if something goes wrong before scientists recover communications with the spacecraft, they have no way of fixing it. That’s a bigger concern than what scientific data might be lost in the near term, a spokeswoman for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said.

Earlier this year, Voyager 2 switched to running its five instruments on backup power to prolong the life of the mission. Scientists anticipate that one of these instruments will need to be shut down completely in 2026, and others in successive years, to keep the mission functioning for as long as possible.

What’s Next: The people of Earth can wait

The mission’s managers will attempt to use the Deep Space Network on Wednesday to send Voyager 2 a command to reorient the direction of its antenna back toward Earth, according to the laboratory spokeswoman. It will take about 18 hours for the signal to arrive at the spacecraft, and another 18 before scientists on Earth will know if it worked.

If the command fails, scientists will have to wait until Oct. 15. On that day, the mission’s computer is programmed to automatically point the antenna back toward 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 spokeswoman said. “On the other hand, it’s 46. It’s done well so far. So we have a lot of confidence that it’ll be OK.”

Katrina Miller is a science reporting fellow for The Times. She recently earned her Ph.D. in particle physics from the University of Chicago. More about Katrina Miller

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NASA reestablishes full contact with Voyager 2 probe after nail-biting 2-week blackout

After accidentally shifting Voyager 2's antenna by two degrees, NASA fell out of contact with the interstellar probe on July 21. On Aug. 4, the agency succesfully reset the probe's antenna, restoring communications.

UPDATE: On Aug. 4, NASA confirmed that the agency has reestablished full communications with the Voyager 2 probe, after a nail-biting two weeks of radio darkness. 

After detecting a "heartbeat" signal from the probe on Aug.1, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) sent a "shout" to the probe in an attempt to manually realign its antenna toward Earth. After roughly 37 hours — 18.5 hours for NASA's signal to reach the probe at its interstellar frontier, and another 18 .5 hours for Voyager 2 to respond — "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 .  NASA has temporarily lost contact with the Voyager 2 probe — the second-farthest human made object from Earth in the universe, currently sailing through interstellar space roughly 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) from home.

According to a statement from NASA JPL, scientists lost contact with the probe on July 21 after a series of planned commands inadvertently caused Voyager 2 to angle its antenna away from Earth by about two degrees. Unable to transmit or receive messages from NASA's Deep Space Network — an international array of large radio antennas that support many of NASA's interplanetary missions — Voyager 2 is essentially adrift and alone in the dark of space, having left the outer edge of our solar system in November 2018.

Luckily, the radio blackout should be temporary, NASA said. Voyager 2 is programmed to reset its antenna's alignment several times each year to stay in contact with Earth as it drifts ever farther away. The next reset is scheduled for Oct. 15, at which point communication with Voyager 2 should resume.

Related: Voyager 1 sends strange signals from beyond the solar system. Scientists are confused.

The twin Voyager probes were launched in August and September 1977, 16 days apart from one another. (Counterintuitively, Voyager 2 launched before Voyager 1). Both probes flew fly by the outer solar system planets before ultimately passing through the farthest boundary of the heliosphere — the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere that separates our solar system from interstellar space.

Voyager 1 made it to interstellar space first, passing beyond the heliosphere in August 2012. The single most distant human made object from Earth ever created, Voyager 1 is currently about 14.8 billion miles (23.8 billion km) from our planet, and gaining distance every day. Communications with Voyager 1 remain uninterrupted.

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— A mysterious 'hum' vibrates interstellar space. Voyager 1 has a recording of it.

— What happens in intergalactic space?

— What's the maximum number of planets that could orbit the sun?

Both Yoyagers have enough electircal power and fuel to continue their current operations until at least 2025, according to NASA. But whenthe day comes that both probes inevitably cease communications with Earth forever, their mission to the stars will still continue. Stored aboard both probes are twin copies of a gold-plated copper disk, known as the Voyager Golden Record — a sort of audio postcard designed to share Earth's natural and musical heritage with any intelligent aliens that may one day chance upon the probes. The records each contain 27 pieces of music, including Bach and Chuck Berry, 22 minutes of nature sounds and voices speaking in 59 human languages. 

The probes also contain an audio player with pictorial instructions, and a star map showing the location of Earth . Whether anyone finds them is a question for another millennium.  This article, originally published on  Aug. 1, was updated on Aug. 8 after NASA successfully reestablished communication with the Voyager 2 probe.

Brandon is the space/physics editor at Live Science. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Reader's Digest, CBS.com, the Richard Dawkins Foundation website and other outlets. He holds a bachelor's degree in creative writing from the University of Arizona, with minors in journalism and media arts. He enjoys writing most about space, geoscience and the mysteries of the universe.

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Interstellar Mission

The Voyager 2 spacecraft, which has been in operation since 1977 and is the only spacecraft to have ever visited Uranus and Neptune, has made its way to interstellar space, where its twin spacecraft, Voyager 1, has resided since August 2012.

Mission Statistics

Launch Date

Aug. 20, 1977

About the mission

The Voyager 2 spacecraft, which has been in operation since 1977 and is the only spacecraft to have ever visited Uranus and Neptune, has made its way to interstellar space, where its twin spacecraft, Voyager 1, has resided since August 2012. During its travels through the outer solar system, Voyager 2 visited all four gas giant planets, and also discovered and photographed many of the planets' moons.

The spacecraft's flyby of Neptune in 1989 set it on a course below the elliptic plane that eventually took it to interstellar space on November 5, 2018. In 1998, engineers switched off the spacecraft's nonessential instruments to conserve power. Data from at least some of the six instruments still in operation should be received until at least 2025.

Instruments

• Imaging system
• Infrared interferometer spectrometer
• Ultraviolet spectrometer
• Triaxial fluxgate magnetometer
• Plasma spectrometer
• Low-energy charged particles detectors
• Cosmic Ray System (CRS)
• Photopolarimeter System (PPS)
• Plasma Wave System (PWS)

Mission Highlights

Nov. 5, 2018

Interactive 3D model of Voyager 2.View the full interactive experience at Eyes on the Solar System .

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NASA has regained contact with Voyager 2 after losing it for a week

After accidentally turning the Voyager 2 spacecraft away from Earth and losing contact with it, NASA engineers have now heard a “heartbeat signal” that shows it is still okay

By Leah Crane

1 August 2023

An artist’s impression of NASA’s Voyager spacecraft

On 21 July, NASA lost touch with the Voyager 2 spacecraft, which is nearly 20 billion kilometres away from Earth. Now, operators have heard from Voyager 2 again – the spacecraft is still working, but they are still struggling to regain full communication.

Voyager 2 launched in 1977 and has been hurtling towards the outer edges of the solar system and into interstellar space since then. It is now the second-most distant spacecraft from Earth after its sibling craft, Voyager 1 , which is almost 24 billion kilometres away. Several of its science instruments, including its magnetometer and its cosmic ray detector, are still working 46 years after launch and sending data back to Earth.

Or they were, at least, until 21 July, when a series of commands from mission control inadvertently shifted the orientation of the spacecraft, pointing its antenna just 2 degrees away from Earth. That meant that the signals from the spacecraft weren’t reaching satellite dishes on the ground , and operators couldn’t send any signals to try to turn it back towards us.

Thankfully, they aren’t completely in the dark. On 31 July, NASA detected a faint hint of what is called a “carrier signal” from Voyager 2. Generally, if the antenna was aligned properly, this signal would contain real-time data from the spacecraft, but because it isn’t aligned the signal wasn’t strong enough to extract anything from it.

Voyager 2 sent back its first detailed data from interstellar space

“We see the ‘heartbeat’ signal from the spacecraft… so we know the spacecraft is alive and operating,” said Suzanne Dodd , the manager of the Voyager project at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, in a statement sent to New Scientist . While catching the signal was unexpected, the fact that the spacecraft itself is fine wasn’t a big surprise – it has been scudding along for 46 years, after all.

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But if anything were to go wrong, we would have no way to send any commands to Voyager 2 while the antenna is pointed away from Earth. “We are now generating a new command to attempt to point the spacecraft antenna toward Earth,” said Dodd. “There is a low probability that this will work.”

Even if it doesn’t work, all is not lost – Voyager 2 is programmed to automatically reset its orientation a few times a year in case of situations just like this one. The next automatic reset will be on 15 October, and communication should resume then. Until then, the spacecraft’s operators will keep trying to turn it around and continue to monitor the heartbeat signal.

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Voyager 1 and Voyager 2

Where are they now.

Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have reached "interstellar space" and each continue their unique journey deeper into the cosmos. In NASA's Eyes on the Solar System app, you can see the actual spacecraft trajectories of the Voyagers updated every five minutes.

Mission Status

Instrument status.

Voyager 1 Present Position

Voyager 2 present position, discover more topics from nasa.

NASA used an interstellar 'shout' to reconnect with Voyager 2 probe after losing it in a technical screw-up

• NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory reconnected with the Voyager 2 space probe after losing it.
• The space agency lost contact on July 21 after accidentally sending a wrong command.
• The team was able to reorient it back towards Earth using a last-ditch strategy few thought would work.

NASA announced on Friday that it had reestablished communication with the Voyager 2 space probe after a long-shot strategy paid off.

The agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory sent an interstellar "shout" more than 12.3 billion miles which got the probe's attention after an error by NASA officials rendered the probe temporarily unreachable.

NASA lost contact with Voyager 2 on July 21 after it erroneously sent a series of commands that caused its antenna to point two degrees away from Earth.

That left it "unable to receive commands or transmit data back to Earth," severing it from the ground antennae of NASA's Deep Space Network, a global system that NASA uses to communicate with space probes.

Hope re-emerged on Tuesday, when NASA said it had detected a faint signal from Voyager.

The agency then used a facility in Canberra, Australia, to blast a "shout" across the cosmos to get Voyager to point its antennae back to Earth and resume ordinary communication.

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According to the agency, it took the signal 18.5 hours for commands to reach Voyager 2 through the vastness of space. The outward and return journeys together took 37 hours, leaving the scientists in limbo waiting to hear whether the ploy worked.

Suzanne Dodd, the project manager for Voyager 2, said that that time "was pretty nervewracking. You don't sleep well," per The New York Times .

The operation only had a small chance of success, a spokeswoman for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory told The Times. But it nevertheless appeared to be a success, as NASA said that the probe finally began sending back data on August 4 at 12:29 a.m., and that all seemed to return to normal.

"After two weeks of not hearing anything, we're back to getting unique data from the interstellar medium," said Linda Spilker, a planetary scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the lead mission scientist for Voyager 2.

The probe does not appear to have been affected by the incident, with Dodd saying that an assessment showed that it looked "very healthy, very normal," per The Times.

The Voyager 2 probe is part of NASA's longest-running mission, and it has traveled through space for almost half a century, capturing some of the most iconic pictures  of the solar system.

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Nasa contacts voyager 2 using upgraded deep space network dish, jet propulsion laboratory.

The only radio antenna that can command the 43-year-old spacecraft has been offline since March as it gets new hardware, but work is on track to wrap up in February.

On Oct. 29, mission operators sent a series of commands to NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft for the first time since mid-March. The spacecraft has been flying solo while the 70-meter-wide (230-foot-wide) radio antenna used to talk to it has been offline for repairs and upgrades. Voyager 2 returned a signal confirming it had received the “call” and executed the commands without issue.

The call to Voyager 2 was a test of new hardware recently installed on Deep Space Station 43, the only dish in the world that can send commands to Voyager 2. Located in Canberra, Australia, it is part of NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), a collection of radio antennas around the world used primarily to communicate with spacecraft operating beyond the Moon. Since the dish went offline , mission operators have been able to receive health updates and science data from Voyager 2, but they haven’t been able to send commands to the far-flung probe, which has traveled billions of miles from Earth since its 1977 launch.

Among the upgrades to DSS43, as the dish is known, are two new radio transmitters. One of them, which is used to talk with Voyager 2, hasn’t been replaced in over 47 years. Engineers have also upgraded heating and cooling equipment, power supply equipment, and other electronics needed to run the new transmitters.

The successful call to Voyager 2 is just one indication that the dish will be back online in February 2021.

“What makes this task unique is that we’re doing work at all levels of the antenna, from the pedestal at ground level all the way up to the feedcones at the center of the dish that extend above the rim,” said Brad Arnold, the DSN project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Southern California. “This test communication with Voyager 2 definitely tells us that things are on track with the work we’re doing.”

Worldwide Network

The Deep Space Network consist of radio antenna facilities spaced equally around the globe in Canberra; Goldstone, California; and Madrid, Spain. The positioning of the three facilities ensures that almost any spacecraft with a line of sight to Earth can communicate with at least one of the facilities at any time.

Voyager 2 is the rare exception. In order to make a close flyby of Neptune’s moon Triton in 1989, the probe flew over the planet’s north pole. That trajectory deflected it southward relative to the plane of the planets, and it has been heading in that direction ever since. Now more than 11.6 billion miles (18.8 billion kilometers) from Earth, the spacecraft is so far south that it doesn’t have a line of sight with radio antennas in the Northern Hemisphere.

Click on this interactive visualization of NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft and take it for a spin Launched in 1977, the spacecraft is now more than 11.6 billion miles (18.8 billion kilometers) from Earth. Trace its dramatic history through Eyes on the Solar System . Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

DSS43 is the only dish in the Southern Hemisphere that has a transmitter powerful enough and that broadcasts the right frequency to send commands to the distant spacecraft. Voyager 2’s faster-moving twin, Voyager 1, took a different path past Saturn and can communicate via antennas at the two DSN facilities in the Northern Hemisphere. The antennas must uplink commands to both Voyagers in a radio frequency range called S-band, and the antennas downlink data from the spacecraft in a range called X-band.

While mission operators haven’t been able to command Voyager 2 since DSS43 went offline, the three 34-meter-wide (111-foot-wide) radio antennas at the Canberra facility can be used together to capture the signals that Voyager 2 sends to Earth. The probe is sending back science data from interstellar space , or the region outside our Sun’s heliosphere – the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun that surrounds the planets and the Kuiper Belt (the collection of small, icy bodies beyond Neptune’s orbit).

DSS43 began operating in 1972 (five years before the launch of Voyager 2 and Voyager 1) and was only 64 meters (210 feet) wide at the time. It was expanded to 70 meters (230 feet) in 1987 and has received a variety of upgrades and repairs since then. But the engineers overseeing the current work say this is one of the most significant makeovers the dish has received and the longest it’s been offline in over 30 years.

“The DSS43 antenna is a highly specialized system; there are only two other similar antennas in the world, so having the antenna down for one year is not an ideal situation for Voyager or for many other NASA missions,” said Philip Baldwin, operations manager for NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Program. “The agency made the decision to conduct these upgrades to ensure that the antenna can continue to be used for current and future missions. For an antenna that is almost 50 years old, it’s better to be proactive than reactive with critical maintenance.”

The repairs will benefit other missions, including the Mars Perseverance rover , which will land on the Red Planet Feb. 18, 2021. The network will also play a critical role in Moon to Mars exploration efforts, ensuring communication and navigation support for both the precursor Moon and Mars missions and the crewed Artemis missions .

The Deep Space Network is managed by JPL for the SCaN Program, located at NASA Headquarters within the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. The Canberra station is managed on NASA’s behalf by Australia’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.

The Voyager spacecraft were built by JPL, which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/voyager

https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov

Calla Cofield Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 626-808-2469 [email protected] 2020-207