NASA hears signal from Voyager 2 spacecraft after mistakenly cutting contact

Voyager 2 was around 12 billion miles from Earth when NASA lost contact with the spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Caltech

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.

But now, 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 on Tuesday.

The news “buoyed our spirits,” Ms Dodd said.

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Light controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California will now try to turn Voyager 2’s antenna back toward Earth.

If the command doesn’t work - and controllers doubt it will - they’ll have to wait until October for an automatic spacecraft reset.

The antenna is only a mere 2% off-kilter.

The craft - one of only two to have ever made it beyond our solar system - is more than 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometres) away.

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 - will also 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.

Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 to explore the outer planets, just a couple weeks ahead of its identical twin, Voyager 1.

Still in touch with Earth, Voyager 1 is now nearly 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away, making it humanity's most distant spacecraft.

The Voyager 2 spacecraft, atop a Titan Centaur rocket being launched into space in 1977. Credit: AP
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Both spacecraft were designed to find and study the edge of our solar system.

Voyager 1 has been used to study Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, according to NASA.

In 2018, more than 40 years after its launch, Voyager 2 entered interstellar space - the parts of the universe between star systems - in 2018.

Voyager 2 was the first human-made object to fly past the planet Uranus. The spacecraft discovered more than a dozen new moons during its years in space.

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