NASA Attempts To Regain Contact With Voyager 2 Spacecraft, In Interstellar Space, After Command Error

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is currently trying to establish contact with Voyager 2, which has lost communication with Earth from billions of kilometres away.

Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have ever visited Uranus and Neptune, and in December 2018 joined its twin, Voyager 1, to become the only human-made objects to enter interstellar space — the space between stars.

Voyager 2 has been drifting further into interstellar space and has been out of touch since some planned commands sent to the spacecraft on 21 July inadvertently caused the antenna to point 2 degrees away from Earth.

A mere 2 degrees was enough to cut off communication.

Although the chances are slim, NASA has deployed a large dish antenna in Canberra, Australia, to scan for any possible signals from Voyager 2.

Because the spacecraft is nearly 20 billion kilometres away, it will take over 18 hours for a signal to reach Earth from that distance.

In the coming week, the Canberra antenna, which is part of NASA's Deep Space Network, will also transmit the correct command to Voyager 2's vicinity. There is hope that this command will reach the spacecraft and restore communication.

Alternatively, NASA will have to wait until October for an automatic spacecraft reset to restore communication.

"Voyager 2 is programmed to reset its orientation multiple times each year to keep its antenna pointing at Earth; the next reset will occur on Oct. 15, which should enable communication to resume," the US space agency said.

Until then, Voyager 2 is expected to remain on its planned trajectory.

Voyager 2 last strayed from regular operations in late January 2020. The five operating science instruments on board were turned off after one of the spacecraft's autonomous fault protection routines was triggered.

"Multiple fault protection routines were programmed into both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 in order to allow the spacecraft to automatically take actions to protect themselves if potentially harmful circumstances arise," NASA explained.

In early February that year, Voyager 2 was found to be "stable" and its communications with Earth "good." The spacecraft returned to normal operations early March 2020.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 2 was sent to explore the outer planets, as well as to find and study the edge of the solar system.

"Voyager 1 and 2 were designed to take advantage of a rare planetary alignment to study the outer solar system up close," NASA says, with Voyager 2 targeting Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Voyager 2 eventually became the only spacecraft to study all four of the solar system's giant planets at close range.

In doing so, the spacecraft discovered moons at Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune, and also new rings at the latter two planets.

It is thought that data from at least some of the six instruments still in operation on Voyager 2 should be received until at least 2025.

There will come a time when there won't be enough electricity to power even one instrument. "Then," says NASA, "Voyager 2 will silently continue its eternal journey among the stars."

Voyager 1, at about 24 billion kilometres away the most distant spacecraft from Earth, is still in contact and doing fine.

Both the Voyager spacecraft are speeding through interstellar space at over 55,000 kilometres per hour.

The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory. They are managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.