V-GER! Still going into inerstellar space. They are expected to last into their 50th year in 2027
Voyager 1 is around 15 billion miles away from Earth.
Voyager 2 is located more than 12 billion miles from Earth and first launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in August 1977, along with the twin Voyager 1.
They have to keep the 1977 equipment around and working.
https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/
https://www.foxnews.com/science/nasa-reestablishes-contact-voyager-2-spacecraft-weeks-silence
NASA has restored full communications with its Voyager 2 spacecraft following weeks of silence.
The agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Friday that NASA's Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia, sent the "equivalent of an interstellar ‘shout’ more than 12.3 billion miles to Voyager 2," commanding the spacecraft to turn its antenna back to Earth.
"With a one-way light time of 18.5 hours for the command to reach Voyager, it took 37 hours for mission controllers to learn whether the command worked," the scientists said in an update.
Shortly before 12:30 a.m. EDT Friday, the spacecraft began returning science and telemetry data.
An Insterstellar OOOOPS!
JPL initially said a series of planned commands on July 21 had "inadvertently" caused the antenna to point two degrees away from Earth.
The action resulted in Voyager 2 being unable to receive commands or transmit data back to Earth.
If the command to Voyager 2 hadn't worked, NASA would have had to wait until October, when Voyager 2's onboard software automatically tells it to reset its direction.
Voyager 2 is programmed to reset its orientation multiple times each year to keep its antenna pointing at Earth. The next reset will occur Oct. 15.
"We’ve been very clever over the last 10 years to eke out every single little watt," she said. "Hopefully, one of them will make it to 50. But they are old, and certainly events like this one that just happened scare the dickens out of me, as far as making that type of a milestone."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Julia Musto is a reporter for Fox News and Fox Business Digital.
Voyager 1 is around 15 billion miles away from Earth.
Voyager 2 is located more than 12 billion miles from Earth and first launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in August 1977, along with the twin Voyager 1.
They have to keep the 1977 equipment around and working.
https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/
https://www.foxnews.com/science/nasa-reestablishes-contact-voyager-2-spacecraft-weeks-silence
NASA Voyager 2 enters interstellar space
Voyager 2 could be the only trace of civilization, lasting for billions of yearsNASA has restored full communications with its Voyager 2 spacecraft following weeks of silence.
The agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Friday that NASA's Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia, sent the "equivalent of an interstellar ‘shout’ more than 12.3 billion miles to Voyager 2," commanding the spacecraft to turn its antenna back to Earth.
"With a one-way light time of 18.5 hours for the command to reach Voyager, it took 37 hours for mission controllers to learn whether the command worked," the scientists said in an update.
Shortly before 12:30 a.m. EDT Friday, the spacecraft began returning science and telemetry data.
An Insterstellar OOOOPS!
JPL initially said a series of planned commands on July 21 had "inadvertently" caused the antenna to point two degrees away from Earth.
The action resulted in Voyager 2 being unable to receive commands or transmit data back to Earth.
If the command to Voyager 2 hadn't worked, NASA would have had to wait until October, when Voyager 2's onboard software automatically tells it to reset its direction.
Voyager 2 is programmed to reset its orientation multiple times each year to keep its antenna pointing at Earth. The next reset will occur Oct. 15.
"We’ve been very clever over the last 10 years to eke out every single little watt," she said. "Hopefully, one of them will make it to 50. But they are old, and certainly events like this one that just happened scare the dickens out of me, as far as making that type of a milestone."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Julia Musto is a reporter for Fox News and Fox Business Digital.
