NASA mistakenly lost contact with Voyager 2

Aug 1, 2023

Misc

Voyager 2, a spacecraft launched by NASA, has lost contact due to an error that caused the antenna to deviate 2 degrees from Earth.
NASA is hopeful that the spacecraft's scheduled repositioning maneuver will restore the communication link, allowing data transfer to resume.
Despite the issues with Voyager 2, Voyager 1, a similar spacecraft, remains operational and continues to function as expected.

Voyager 2, a well-known spacecraft, has unfortunately lost contact with NASA. This happened because of a mistake where a command was sent that caused the spacecraft's antenna to shift 2 degrees away from Earth. This is an important detail, especially considering that Voyager 2 is not a nearby spacecraft. It started its journey in 1977 and is now approximately 12.4 billion miles, or 19.9 billion kilometers, away from our planet.

This mistake has caused a break in the communication link between Voyager 2 and the ground antennas that are part of NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN). In NASA's words, "This change has interrupted communication between Voyager 2 and the ground antennas of the Deep Space Network (DSN)."

As a result of this issue, Voyager 2 is not able to get commands from the controllers on the ground or send data back to them. Because of this, any information being sent by Voyager 2 is not getting through to the DSN.

NASA didn't share the news about the incident and the loss of contact with Voyager 2 right away. Instead, they only informed the public about it on Friday, even though they lost contact with the spacecraft a week earlier.

Luckily, there is some positive news. NASA has shared that Voyager 2 carries out a repositioning move a few times each year. This maneuver "should enable communication to resume," according to the space agency. While we wait for this to happen, Voyager 2 is expected to keep moving along its set path.

Voyager 2, NASA's reliable spacecraft, has been traveling in space for over 46 years. In 1998, to save energy, the engineers at NASA turned off the parts of Voyager 2 that were not essential. We should still be able to get information from at least a few of the six devices that are still working, hopefully until 2025. This, however, depends on whether communication with the spacecraft can be reestablished in the coming months.

Voyager 2 has had quite the journey. It has made its way to all four gas giant planets - Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus. It is also the only spacecraft that has ever visited Neptune and Uranus. After its pass by Neptune in 1989, Voyager 2 was sent on a path that took it to interstellar space in November 2018.

If you're worried about Voyager 1 because of the recent communication mishap with Voyager 2, you can relax. Voyager 1, which also started its journey in 1977 and is almost 15 billion miles or 24 billion kilometers from Earth, is doing just fine. The spacecraft "continues to operate normally," as stated by NASA.