TIMESINDONESIA, JAKARTA – The United States Space Agency, NASA lost contact with the Voyager 2 spacecraft, which is now 19.9 billion km from Earth after sending an incorrect order.
The spaceship is exploring a place that has never been explored before.
The spacecraft was launched in 1977 or 46 years ago, and is now further from Earth and the Sun than Pluto.
Voyager 2 entered interstellar space on November 5, 2018 and scientists hope to learn more about this region.
Previously these spacecraft were still transmitting scientific information about their environment via the Deep Space Network, or DSN.
Voyager 2 explored Uranus and Neptune, and is still the only spacecraft to visit these outer planets.
This adventurous spacecraft mission, the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM), will explore the outer edges of the Sun’s domain, and beyond.
Last month, as reported by the BBC, the spacecraft tilted its antenna to a point two degrees from Earth after the glitch occurred.
As a result, the probe or its instruments stop receiving commands or sending data.
NASA hopes that communications will continue when the probe is reset in October
The craft is traveling at about 34,390 mph (55,346 km/h) in interstellar space.
Since July 21, 2023, the probe has been unable to receive commands or transmit data back to NASA’s Deep Space Network, a giant worldwide array of radio antennas, and the spacecraft does not receive commands from ground controllers.
On Monday, NASA said that its large dish over the Australian capital, Canberra, was trying to detect stray signals from Voyager 2.
It takes more than 18 hours for a signal to reach Earth from that great distance.
“The antennae will also bombard the Voyager 2 area with the right commands, in hopes of making contact with the probe,” said NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which managed the Voyager mission.
Otherwise, Voyager 2 was programmed to reorient a few times each year to keep its antennae pointed toward Earth.
The next reset is scheduled for October 15, which NASA says must enable communications to go ahead.
NASA hopes the spacecraft loaded with science instruments stays on its planned trajectory through the universe.
Voyager 2 and its twin Voyager 1 are two spacecraft operating outside the heliosphere, the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields generated by the Sun. They reached interstellar space in 2018 and 2012 respectively.
Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have flown past Neptune and Uranus, while Voyager 1 is now nearly 15 billion miles from Earth, making it the most distant spacecraft from mankind.
herald
: Widodo Irianto
Editor: Wahyu Nurdiyanto
2023-08-02 03:10:37
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