It only took one small mistake to hijack communications from a 46-year-old space probe. Voyager 2, sent into space in 1977, has not responded for a week, according to our colleagues from the Guardian. In question, a bad command sent by NASA which caused a change of orientation of the antenna of the probe on July 21 last. After more than 40 years of loyal service, the spacecraft says no more.
In particular responsible for observing the planets Uranus and Neptune, the probe left the solar system in 2018. And, despite the enormous distance that separates it from Earth, it continued to provide data to NASA teams, until A week ago.
Currently located 19 billion kilometers from our planet, the satellite can no longer transmit its signals to NASA. The wrong command that was sent by the US space agency caused the antenna’s angle to shift just 2 degrees from Earth, too big a difference for Voyager 2.
But NASA has not said its last word. The agency plans to use its Deep Space Network system, based in Canberra, Australia, to “bombard” the area where the probe is located with signals telling it to raise its antenna to the correct angle.
And, if the operation proves unsuccessful, NASA can still count on the automatic restart of Voyager 2, scheduled for mid-October next (operation which regularly reorients the antenna of the machine) in order to resume communications with his mythical probe.
