Liputan6.com, Washington DC – NASA is back in full contact with the missing Voyager 2 probe, the US space agency said.
In July 2023, an erroneous command was made to the probe’s spacecraft, changing its position and breaking contact with the control center.
The staff uses the “highest power transmitter” to send messages to the spacecraft and time them to be sent during the “best conditions” so the antennas line up on command, Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd told AFP.
It took mission control 37 hours to find out if the interstellar command had worked because Voyager 2 is billions of miles away from Earth.
During periods of outages, the spacecraft was unable to receive commands or transmit data back to NASA’s Deep Space Network – a giant series of radio antennas around the world.
But the space agency confirmed on August 4 that data had been received from the spacecraft and was operating normally.
NASA expects the spacecraft loaded with science instruments to stay on its planned trajectory through the universe.
Earlier on Monday 31 July 2023, the space agency said its large dish over the Australian capital, Canberra, was attempting to detect a stray signal from Voyager 2. That’s when the faint “heartbeat” signal was first heard.
Antennas have bombarded the area of Voyager 2 with the right orders, in hopes of somehow making contact, said NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the Voyager mission.
The probe is programmed to rearrange its position several times each year to keep its antennae pointed toward Earth. The next reset is scheduled for October 15, which NASA hopes to do if all other attempts fail.
2023-08-06 02:00:12
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