Radio silence like this has never been. After months of no way to make contact with Voyager 2, NASA has finally re-established communications with the record-setting interstellar spacecraft.
The breakdown in communications – lasting from March, almost eight months and a full epidemic – was not due to some rogue defect, nor to any run-in with international space quirks (although there are).
In this case, it was more a case of routine maintenance. And yet, while you’re one of the most distant flying spacecraft in history – leaving the Earth and even the entire solar system behind you – nothing really is really regular.
In March, NASA announced that Deep Space Station 43 (DSS-43) in Australia, the only antenna on Earth that could send commands to Voyager 2, needed the necessary upgrades and would have to be shut down for about 11 months to complete the work. . .
During this window, Voyager 2, which is currently 18.7 billion kilometers (11.6 billion miles) away from Earth and is moving all the time, will not be able to receive any communications from Earth, although we will still have its own broadcasts. Received by scientists.
It is permanent, the DSS-43’s are still being upgraded and will be finalized in February 2021, but enough upgrades have been installed to begin initial testing.
Last week, mission operators sent their first conversation since March on Voyager 2, a series of commands, and NASA reported that Voyager 2 returned a signal confirming receipt of instructions, and executed without issuing commands.
For the past 8-months, Deep Space Station 43 has been upgrading. @ NASA Voyager-2 is once again waiting to send commands once again. On Friday the 30th of October, we sent those commands and after a round trip time of 48 minutes per hour, a “hello” came back! # DSS43 @ CCIRO pic.twitter.com/qyMEc9JkxcNovember 2, 2020
Successful pings between a radio antenna and a spacecraft are not usually newsing events, but Voyager 2 is a one-story and pro-historical probe (NASA’s longest-running space mission in particular), with special attention – especially in situations involving duration. Is. The length of one-way radio silence, so effective, is unprecedented.
According to NASA, the DSS-35 has not flown offline for more than 30 years. The old radio antenna that needed to be replaced – the only one in the world capable of broadcasting on Voyager 2 – has been in use for more than 47 years.
As part of the innovation, DSS-43 is acquiring two new antennas, upgraded heating and cooling devices, power supply devices and other electronics to support the new transmitters. When the work is completed, the upgrades will provide a base of longevity to a feature that is already legendary.
“What makes this work unique is that we’re working on all levels of antennas, from ground level pedals to feedcons, at the center of the dim that extends over the rim,” says NASA Deep Space, Network Project Manager. Brad Arnold.
“This test communication with Voyager 2 certainly tells us that things are on track by what we’re doing.”
Since the DSS-35 is the only dish in the world that can reach Voyager 2, the reason is not entirely technical. As a result of the flyby of Neptune’s Moon Triton probe in 1989, the speed of Voyager 2 increased significantly in a southerly direction compared to the plane of the solar system’s planets, meaning there is no way to reach the Earth’s antenna in the Northern Hemisphere.
For antennas under down, though, it’s no big deal – unless you take offline flight for crucial upgrades in about a year. Even then, scientists never stopped thinking about Voyager 2, and kept an eye on its petals.
“We’ve always been talking to the spacecraft. We’re doing it every day,” Suzanne Dode, project manager for the Voyager Interteller mission, told CNN.
“We can see his health. If he wasn’t healthy, we would have known.”
This article was originally published by Science Alert. Read the original article Here.
