voyager 2
Washington DC: On Friday, the American space agency NASA once again established contact with the Voyager-2 spacecraft. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory gave this information on Saturday.
NASA has searched for Voyager-2 from its largest antenna (transmitter) in Canberra, Australia. On July 21, a command given by NASA caused the spacecraft’s antenna to shift by 2%. Due to this Voyager-2 lost contact with NASA.
On Friday, a signal was sent from the station in Canberra to Voyager 2 with the correct commands. This turned the spacecraft’s antenna back towards Earth and contact was re-established.
If this did not work, then NASA would have to reset its entire system to contact Voyager-2. This process would have taken place on 15 October. This is because Voyager 2’s antenna is reset several times a year on a fixed date to keep it pointed towards Earth.
This spacecraft is currently 19.9 billion kilometres away from the Earth. Voyager-2 sends space-related information to the Deep Space Network ie DSN. At present, it takes more than 18 hours for a signal from Earth to reach the location of Voyager-2.
Voyager 2 is the first aircraft sent to search for other planets in space outside the Solar System. It was launched on 20 August 1977. This spacecraft has so far closely studied the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus. It crossed the solar system and reached interstellar space in 2018.
NASA launched Voyager-1 on 5 September 1977 after Voyager-2 to search for other planets in space. Voyager-1 entered interstellar space on 25 August 2012. In February 1990, this aircraft took the first overview picture of the Solar System. Voyager-1 is still in contact with NASA. It is currently at a distance of 24 billion kilometres from the Earth. This distance is such that it takes 48 hours for a message to come from Earth and Voyager and send it back to Voyager.