Launched in 1977 to discover the outer planets and function a beacon of humanity to the broader universe, it’s at present greater than 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) from our planet — nicely past the photo voltaic system.
A collection of deliberate instructions despatched to the spaceship on July 21 mistakenly brought on the antenna to level two levels away from Earth, compromising its capacity to ship and obtain indicators and endangering its mission.
The state of affairs was not anticipated to be resolved till no less than October 15 when Voyager 2 was scheduled to hold out an automatic realignment maneuver.
However on Tuesday, engineers enlisted the assistance of a number of Earth observatories that type the Deep Area Community (DSN) to detect a service or “heartbeat” wave from Voyager 2, although the sign was nonetheless too faint to learn the info it carried.
In a brand new replace on Friday, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which constructed and operates the probe, mentioned it had succeeded in a longshot effort to ship directions that righted the craft.
“The Deep Area Community used the highest-power transmitter to ship the command (the 100-kw S-band uplink from the Canberra web site) and timed it to be despatched throughout the perfect situations throughout the antenna monitoring go with a view to maximize doable receipt of the command by the spacecraft,” Voyager undertaking supervisor Suzanne Dodd instructed AFP.
This so-called “interstellar shout” required 18.5 hours touring at gentle pace to achieve Voyager, and it took 37 hours for mission controllers to study whether or not the command labored, JPL mentioned in a press release.
The probe started returning science and telemetry information at 12:29 am Jap Time on August 4, “indicating it’s working usually and that it stays on its anticipated trajectory,” added JPL.
Voyager 2 left the protecting magnetic bubble offered by the Solar, referred to as the heliosphere, in December 2018, and is at present touring by means of the area between the celebrities.
Earlier than leaving our photo voltaic system, it explored Jupiter and Saturn, and have become the primary and to date solely spacecraft to go to Uranus and Neptune.
Voyager 2’s twin Voyager 1 was mankind’s first spacecraft to enter the interstellar medium, in 2012, and is at present virtually 15 billion miles from Earth.
Each carry “Golden Data” — 12-inch, gold-plated copper disks supposed to convey the story of our world to extraterrestrials.
These embody a map of our photo voltaic system, a bit of uranium that serves as a radioactive clock permitting recipients thus far the spaceship’s launch, and symbols that convey tips on how to play the report.
The contents of the discs, chosen for NASA by a committee chaired by legendary astronomer Carl Sagan, embody encoded photographs of life on Earth, in addition to music and sounds that may be performed utilizing an included stylus.
For now, the Voyagers proceed to transmit again scientific information, although their energy banks are anticipated to be finally depleted someday after 2025.
They’ll then proceed to wander the Milky Manner, doubtlessly for eternity, in silence.
