NASA has lost contact with the Voyager 2 probe, which is 18.5 billion kilometres from Earth, due to sending the wrong command

The National Aeronautics and Airspace Administration has lost contact with the Voyager 2 spacecraft. The probe has already left the solar system, but continues to operate.

Here's What We Know

NASA specialists recently carried out a manoeuvre to rotate the antenna. This was a planned operation, but due to an error, the space agency lost contact with Voyager 2. The reason was the sending of the wrong command.

The probe's antenna shifted 2°. This was enough for NASA to lose contact with Voyager 2. It will take time to recover, because the spacecraft is at a distance of 20 billion kilometres from our planet, and the signal reaches more than 18 hours.

If NASA specialists do not fix the problem on their own, communication will be restored after an automatic software reset. This procedure is scheduled for 15 October this year.

Voyager 2 set off on a space voyage in August 1977, which is to explore the distant planets of the solar system. The probe has been in flight for almost 46 years and was the first Earth-based vehicle to reach Uranus and Neptune. This happened in 1986 and 1989, respectively.

It is worth noting that Voyager 2 held the record for the distance of the object studied for about 25 years. Ugo was surpassed by the American interplanetary station New Horizons, which reached Pluto in 2015, and a few years later reached the asteroid Arrakot in the Kuiper belt.

Source: NASA