Contact with Voyager 2 Has Been Lost.

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NASA listens for Voyager 2 spacecraft after wrong command cuts contact

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- NASA is listening for any peep from Voyager 2 after losing contact with the spacecraft billions of miles away.

Hurtling ever deeper into interstellar space, Voyager 2 has been out of touch ever since flight controllers accidentally sent a wrong command more than a week ago that tilted its antenna away from Earth. The spacecraft’s antenna shifted a mere 2%, but it was enough to cut communications.

Although it’s considered a long shot, NASA said Monday that its huge dish antenna in Canberra, Australia, is on the lookout for any stray signals from Voyager 2, currently more than 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) distant. It takes more than 18 hours for a signal to reach Earth from so far away.

In the coming week, the Canberra antenna -- part of NASA’s Deep Space Network -- also will bombard Voyager 2’s vicinity with the correct command, in hopes it hits its mark, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the Voyager missions.

Otherwise, NASA will have to wait until October for an automatic spacecraft reset that should restore communication, according to officials.

 Link to Full Article 

Personally, I am surprised that such a derp move had not already been committed.

*UPDATE*

NASA hears signal from Voyager 2

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- After days of silence, NASA has heard from Voyager 2 in interstellar space billions of miles away.

Flight controllers accidentally sent a wrong command nearly two weeks ago that tilted the spacecraft’s antenna away from Earth and severed contact.

NASA’s Deep Space Network, giant radio antennas across the globe, picked up a "heartbeat signal," meaning the 46-year-old craft is alive and operating, project manager Suzanne Dodd said in an email Tuesday.

Read the Full Article  HERE 

They don't make space craft like they used to! I wonder if it is still under warranty?

It wasn't the space craft that was a problem, it was human error. It is all too easy to make a mistake. One would think there would be some fail safes, however.

I'm glad to hear they are back in contact.

^ There is a kind of failsafe - it's supposed to reset itself in October.

^ But apparently the power pack is set to be exhausted by 2025, so the end may be nigh.

Kinda like that Sony color TV set in mom's basement from about the same 1977 era. Still works!

Aww I'm quite glad that we heard from it again, I hate thinking of space ships lost out there.

Was there a Voyager 1? I presume that has gone too far away by now.

It's amazing to think that these Voyagers are so many miles away from Earth, yet they still haven't met another species or gone into another solar system.

I'm sure Fnord will correct me if I'm wrong there

Full communication has been restored, finally, as of today.

Can't they bring it back and plug it in to recharge it?

It seems that Voyager 1 was launched just three weeks before Voyager 2, and is still in contact with Earth.

Voyager 2 is now just over 12 billion (12,000,000,000) miles from Earth, but Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to our Solar System, is around 250 trillion (250,000,000,000,000) miles away....

Hope I've got all those noughts and commas right.

Thats the thing. Voyagers one and two are the two most distant man made objects the human race has ever launched. And yet theyve barely penetrated space at all. Thats how vast space is.


Both are the only two manmade machines to cross the boundary line out of this solar system and into interstellar space.

It took both half of a century to cross the boundary out of this solar system. Both crossed into interstellar space only a few years ago. And as Deephour said ...the nearest next solar system is twenty thousand times the distance that either Voyager has traveled. So...do the math...even if they were headed in the right direction to Alpha Centauri they wouldnt get there for another (fifty years times 20 thousand) ...one million...years!

Dont know if Deephour's numbers are exactly right or not, but the idea he is conveying is spot on about the vast unimaginable distances involved.

Actually, the voyagers may end up as cosmic flotsam on some inhabited alien exoplanet, like a bottle on a beach. But that would be millions of years from now. Long after the two machines both stop working.

But guess what. The builders of Voyager DID put a message in that bottle for any aliens that might find it...a placard was placed on one of the Voyagers with two human figures and symbols supposed to convey information about us as a species (we come in peace, and we are carbon based, and have two sexes, etc)...just in case aliens do find the craft.

But the main purpose of the craft was to explore THIS solar system. And both did a fantastic job of getting up close and personal with the planets of the outer solar system sending back awesome data.

Thanks Mona!

Thanks, I'm not too good on noughts and commas myself!

That is so interesting, thanks! It worries me that we've given aliens all the info they need to come here and kill us, with the details of how our bodies work. But I suspect they would have done that by now if they were going to. Or, they're just watching as we destroy ourselves...

^

That IS one school of thought among the space community. That we shouldnt be announcing our existence ...much less give away our location and other "personal information" in those type of communications. Who knows what kinda scum is out there in Universe? (to paraphrase the trailers for the MIB movies).

We have blasted radio messages from observatories like Arecibo ...just to announce in effect "HEY! Were here! Is there anyone else out there? Please reply!". And some have voiced objections to that sorta thing for that reason. I can see both sides of the issue.

The plaque on Voyager only moves at a sublight speed of a few tens of thousands of miles an hour. And its just a small finite object. So its not likely to be discovered by ET for eons, if ever. But a radio transmission goes out in every direction, and it moves at the speed of light. So that would be of more concern.