NASA is in a desperate search for Voyager 2 after its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) sent a wrong command to the spacecraft.
The agency issued a statement Friday (July 28) it has lost contact with the space probe since July 21 after "inadvertently" commanded it to point its antenna away from Earth.
"Voyager 2 is located more than 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) from Earth, and this change has interrupted communication between Voyager 2 and the ground antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN)," the statement read. "Data being sent by the spacecraft is no longer reaching the DSN, and the spacecraft is not receiving commands from ground controllers."
Meanwhile, its twin, Voyager 1, is continuing to operate normally, NASA-JPL added. Voyager 1 is currently almost 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth.
Comms with Voyagers Difficult as They Get Distant
With the said setback, Voyager 2 has been traveling through space for almost 46 years and is expected to be uncontactable until October 15, when an automatic maneuver could put it back in line with Earth.
In the meantime, NASA aims to bombard the area of space around Voyager 2 with the correct command using its Deep Space Network antenna in Australia with the hope of the probe picking up the signal and resuming communication with Earth, the Australian public broadcaster ABC reported.
Glen Nagle of the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex said the effort was a long shot, but doable.
"It is aging and getting further away from us every single day," he added. "We do know we'll lose contact with the spacecraft sometime towards the end of this decade."
If, after all, efforts are made and NASA fails to find Voyager 2, it could mean the end of its mission.
Odyssey of the Voyagers
The Voyager space program is NASA's longest-running mission, having traveled through space for almost half a century. The cameras aboard the two identical probes have captured some of the most iconic pictures of the solar system and continued to provide vital data as its batteries slowly ran out.
"The science data that the Voyagers are returning gets more valuable the farther away from the sun they go," NASA-JPL' s Linda Spilker said in a press release in April. "We are definitely interested in keeping as many science instruments operating as long as possible."
Even in the event, the battery supply on both Voyagers ran out and the last instruments on both probes switched off, its longer-term missions would continue in the form of a golden record attached on both Voyagers in the event an intelligent extraterrestrial life discovered either of them. Scientists say the information in the golden record could be a way for such alien life forms to make contact with Earth.
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