Two weeks ago, one small mistake resulted in pretty major consequences for NASA’s ability to communicate with a probe floating in deep space.
After running through what was described as “a series of planned commands” with the Voyager 2 probe, the scientific organization realized that one of those commands had repositioned one of the Voyager 2’s antennas two degrees.
That may not seem like a lot, but with the antenna no longer pointed at Earth, it cut off NASA’s ability to communicate with Voyager 2.
However, all is not lost as NASA’s Deep Space Network of ground antennas picked up a carrier signal from the probe on Tuesday.
“A bit like hearing the spacecraft’s ‘heartbeat,’” was how NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory described the signal in a tweet.
With the discovery of that signal, NASA will now attempt to send a command to reposition the antenna in the correct direction. If that command is unsuccessful, NASA will have to wait until October when Voyager 2 runs an automatic routine repositioning program before they can communicate with the probe again.
Signals sent back and forth between NASA and Voyager 2 take 18 hours to reach their destination. The probe is currently 12 billion miles away from Earth. Even without communication though, the probe launched 46 years ago in 1977 is expected to remain on its planned course through space.
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