NASA reconnects with Voyager 2 spacecraft

Technology

Because Voyager 2 is 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from Earth, it took the light-speed crew about 18.5 hours to reach the ship and another 18.5 hours to hear back.

NASA reconnects with Voyager 2 spacecraft
The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) re-established communications with the Voyager 2 spacecraft yesterday, August 4, after two weeks of silence due to flight controllers sending the wrong order to the spacecraft.

Because Voyager 2 is 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from Earth, it took the light-speed crew about 18.5 hours to reach the ship and another 18.5 hours to hear back. Therefore, the crews had to wait more than a day to find out if the measures taken had worked.

A series of scheduled commands sent to Voyager 2 on July 21 mistakenly pointed the antenna 2 degrees off the ground, causing the transmission to cease.

For reference, the spacecraft was launched in 1977 and is 12 billion miles from our solar system.

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