NASA has finally managed to reestablish contact with the Voyager 2 spacecraft following two weeks of silence after flight controllers sent a wrong command to the spacecraft that titled its antenna away from earth.To reposition the antenna, NASA's Deep Space Network sent an "interstellar shout" on Wednesday with the help of NASA's most powerful radio antenna in Canberra, Australia. It was a longshot attempt at sending instructions to right the craft that required perfect timing. The command was timed to be sent during the best conditions during the antenna tracking pass in order to maximize possible receipt of the command by the spacecraft. As Voyager 2 is more than 12 19 billion kilometers from earth, it took roughly 18.5 hours for the command traveling at light speed to reach the spacecraft, and another 18.5 hours to hear back. Crews therefore had to wait more than a day to learn whether their intervention had even worked. In the early hours of yesterday in the US, Voyager began returning science and telemetry data "indicating it is operating normally and that it remains on its expected trajectory," the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said.
#Voyager2 #Voyager2NASA #Voyagermissions
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#Voyager2 #Voyager2NASA #Voyagermissions
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00:00 NASA has finally managed to re-establish contact with the Voyager 2 spacecraft following two
00:07 weeks of silence after flight controllers sent a wrong command to the spacecraft that
00:12 tilted its antenna away from Earth.
00:14 To reposition the antenna, NASA's Deep Space Network sent an interstellar shout on Wednesday
00:20 with the help of the most powerful radio antenna in Canberra, Australia.
00:24 It was a long-shot attempt at sending instructions to write the spacecraft that required perfect
00:29 timing.
00:30 The command was timed to be sent during the best conditions during the antenna tracking
00:33 pass in order to maximize possible receipts of the command by the spacecraft.
00:40 As Voyager 2 is more than 12.19 billion kilometers from Earth, it took roughly 18.5 hours for
00:46 the command traveling at light speed to reach the spacecraft and another 18.5 hours to hear
00:52 back.
00:53 Crews therefore had to wait more than a day to learn whether their intervention had even
00:56 worked.
00:58 In the early hours of Wednesday in the US, Voyager 2 began returning signs and telemetry
01:03 data indicating that it is operating normally and that it remains on its expected trajectory.
01:10 On July 21, a series of planned commands sent to Voyager 2 mistakenly caused the probe's
01:15 antenna to point two degrees away from Earth, which disrupted the transmission of signals.
01:20 NASA engineers had detected a carrier or heartbeat wave from Voyager by using multiple observatories
01:25 around the world that forms the deep space network.
01:29 Although it was too faint to carry any data, it was enough to confirm that the mission
01:33 was still operating and it gave engineers hope that they could send a signal to adjust
01:37 the antenna positioning.
01:39 The two-week outage was believed to be the longest NASA had gone without hearing from
01:43 Voyager 2 in a mission that is well into its fifth decade.
01:46 The antenna only needed to be shifted two degrees to correct the error, but the situation
01:51 was not expected to be resolved until a scheduled automated realignment maneuver on October
01:56 15.
01:57 Voyager 2 and its twin, Voyager 1, were launched in 1977 to explore the outer solar system
02:03 and beyond while serving as a beacon of humanity in outer space.
02:07 Both spacecrafts carry "Golden Records," which are 12-inch gold-plated copper disks
02:12 that feature the sounds of Earth, such as thunder, rainfall, dogs barking, and the sound
02:18 of a baby.
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