Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Oops! NASA Sends Wrong Command To Voyager 2, Loses All Communication

 From the BBC, August 1:

Voyager 2: Nasa loses contact with record-breaking probe after sending wrong command
Nasa has lost contact with its Voyager 2 probe billions of miles away from Earth after sending it the wrong command, the space agency has revealed.

Last month, the spacecraft - exploring space since 1977 - tilted its antenna to point two degrees away from Earth after the mistake was made.

As a result, the probe has stopped receiving commands or sending data.

Nasa said it hopes communication will resume when the probe is due to reset in October. 

Voyager 2 is more than 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion km) from Earth, where it is hurtling at an estimated 34,390mph (55,346km/h) through interstellar space - the space between the stars.

Since 21 July, the pioneering probe has been unable to receive commands or send back data to Nasa's Deep Space Network - an array of giant radio antennae across the world - and the spacecraft is not receiving commands from ground controllers....