NASA's Voyager 2 Spacecraft Has Lost Contact 12.3 Billion Miles Away

Update, August 1: NASA's DSN has detected a weak signal from Voyager 2, confirming the spacecraft is still alive and well and traveling as planned. In order to restart contact earlier than the planned October reset, NASA will attempt to instruct the spacecraft to realign its antenna.

Due to an inadvertent change in antenna direction, NASA's Voyager 2 has lost contact with Earth. Voyager 1 will continue to function normally until the next scheduled orientation change on October 15 is expected to restore communication.

    On July 21, a series of predetermined commands sent to NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft resulted in an unintended change in antenna direction. As a result, the antenna veered 2 degrees away from Earth, which prevented the spacecraft from receiving instructions or sending data back to our planet.

       Since the spacecraft is currently 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) from Earth, connection with NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) terrestrial antennas has been interrupted. The spacecraft cannot communicate data to the DSN and cannot receive commands from ground controllers as a result of the misalignment.

     Voyager 2 is set to rotate several times a year in order to maintain the alignment of its antenna with Earth. On October 15, the next scheduled adjustment is expected to re-establish contact. The mission team anticipates that Voyager 2 will continue on its intended course throughout this lull.

    The operations of Voyager 1, which is over 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, are proceeding without any problems.

    NASA launched the identical Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1977 with the main objective of exploring the outer solar system. Even though they are nearly 40 years old, they are still in use and still provide useful scientific data.

        On September 5, 1977, Voyager 1 was put into orbit with the goal of passing by Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 1's observations of these gas giants and their moons during its voyage resulted in the discovery of active volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io and complex ring systems around Saturn. Voyager 1 made history in 2012 when it became the first spacecraft to leave our solar system and go into interstellar space.

    The only spacecraft to have passed by all four outer planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—is Voyager 2, which was launched on August 20, 1977. It provided crucial information on these planets and their moons, including the identification of the Great Dark Spot on Neptune and the eccentric magnetic field of Uranus.

  A "Golden Record," or phonograph record with sounds and sights chosen to reflect the diversity of life and culture on Earth, is carried by both spacecraft. These documents are meant to explain the history of our planet to any alien intelligence that might stumble upon them.

 The Voyager spacecraft was created and is currently in operation by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a branch of Caltech in Pasadena. The Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington is the sponsor of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, which includes the Voyager missions.