The only radio antenna that can command a 43-year-old spacecraft has been offline flight since March as it gets new hardware, but wrapping work is on track in February.
October On October 29, 2020, the mission administrators sent a series of commands NASAVoyager 2 spacecraft for the first time since mid-March. The spacecraft is flying alone while the 70-meter-wide (230-foot-wide) radio antenna used to talk to it is offline flying for repairs and upgrades. Voyager 2 returned the signal that it had received a “call” and that commands had been executed without issue.
The call to Voyager 2 was a test of a new hardware recently installed on Deep Space Station 43, the only dish in the world that could send commands to Voyager 2. Located in Canberra, Australia, it is part of NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), a collection of radio antennas from around the world used primarily to communicate with spacecraft operating outside the moon. Since the dish flew offline, mission administrators have been able to receive health updates and science data from Voyager 2, but they have not been able to send orders for inland investigations that have traveled billions of miles from Earth since 1977. Launch.
The crew has carried out serious upgrades and repairs to the 70-meter-wide (230-foot-wide) radio antenna Deep Space Station 43 in Canberra, Australia. In this clip, a white feed cone of the antenna (which is part of the housing of the antenna receivers) is being moved by the crane. Credit: CSIRO
Upgrades to the DSS 43, as Dish is known, have two new radio transmitters. One of them, used to talk to Voyager 2, hasn’t changed in 47 years. Engineers have also upgraded the heating and cooling devices, power supply devices and other electronics needed to operate the new transmitters.
The successful Voyager 2 call is the only indication that the dish will be online again in February 2021.
“The reason we make this work unique is that we’re working on all levels of antennas, from ground level pedals to feedcons in the center of the dim that extends over the rim,” said Brad Arnold, DSN project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Southern California. “This test communication with Voyager 2 certainly tells us that things are on track by what we’re doing.”
Worldwide network
The Deep Space Network includes radio antenna features uniformly in Canberra worldwide; Goldstone, California; And Madrid, Spain. The position of all three features ensures that almost any spacecraft with a line of sight on Earth can interact with at least one feature at any one time.
Voyager 2 is a rare exception. In order to make a closer flyby NeptuneIn 1989 the moon Triton flew a probe to Earth’s North Pole. That path turned south in comparison to the plane of the planets and has been moving in that direction ever since. Now more than 11.6 billion miles (18.8 billion kilometers) from Earth, the spacecraft is so south that it has no line of sight with radio antennas in the Northern Hemisphere.
Click on this interactive visualization of NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft and take it for a spin launched in 1977, the spacecraft is now more than 11.6 billion miles (18.8 billion kilometers) from Earth. Discover its dramatic history through the solar system. Credit: NASA /JPL-Caltech
The DSS 43 is the only vessel in the Southern Hemisphere whose transmitter is powerful enough to transmit the right frequency to send a command to a spacecraft. Voyager 2’s fast-moving twins, Voyager 1 took a different path Sat. And can communicate through antennas on two DSN facilities in the Northern Hemisphere. The antenna must uplink commands to both Voyagers in the radio frequency range named S-band, and the antenna downlink data from the spacecraft in the range named X-band.
Mission operators have not been able to command Voyager 2 since the DSS went offline43 offline offline, with three 34-meter-wide (111-foot-wide) radio antennas in the Canberra facility sending simultaneous Voyager 2 signals to receive signals. Earth. From the outer space of our sun’s heliosphere – scientific data is sent back – planets and the Kuiper belt (a collection of small, icy objects outside Neptune’s orbit) particles created by the sun and a protective bubble of magnetic field. ).
DSS 43 was launched in 1972 (five years before the launch of Voyager 2 and Voyager 1) and at that time was only 64 meters (210 feet) wide. It was expanded to 70 meters (230 feet) in 1987 and has since undergone a variety of upgrades and repairs. But engineers overseeing the current work say the dish is one of the most significant innovations achieved and the longest it has been flying offline for 30 years.
NASA is adding a new dish to its deep space network. The artist’s concept shows a new antenna capable of supporting both Deep Space Station-23, the new radio wave and laser communications, which will appear when completed at the Deep Space Network’s Goldstone, California complex. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
“The DSS 4343 antenna is a very specialized system; There are two other similar antennas in the world, so having an antenna for a year is not an ideal situation for Voyager or many other NASA missions, “said Philip Baldwin, operations operations manager for NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCAN) program. . “The agency decided to carry out these improvements so that the antenna could be used for current and future missions. For antennas that are almost 100 years old, it is better to be active than to react to complex maintenance. ”
Repairs will benefit other missions, including Mars The Perteverance Rover, a network that will land on the Red Planet on February 18,2121, will also play a key role in the lunar-to-Mars research effort, ensuring communications and navigation support for both the East Moon and Mars missions and the Crude Artemis mission.
Deep Space Network, J.P.L. By SCN The program is administered to the NASA headquarters located within the Directorate of Human Exploration and Operations. The Canberra station is operated on behalf of NASA by Australia’s National Science Agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Institute.
The Voyager spacecraft was built by JPL, which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena. The Voyager mission is part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Department of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
