On October 29, in order to test recently installed new hardware, NASA mission managers have sent a series of signals to Voyager 2 for the first time in 7 months.
This comes after a series of necessary repairs and upgrades have been made since March at the Deep Space Station 43 in Canberra, Australia.
The Deep Space Network is a worldwide network consisting of radio antenna facilities build in 3 locations around the globe: Australia, U.S.A., and Spain.
The location of the three antennas makes it possible that almost any spacecraft with a line of sight to our planet can communicate with at least one of them at any given time.
However, in this case, the distance itself also makes it difficult for NASA to communicate with Voyager 2, without even taking into account the17 hour time delay. And that’s not the only complication.
Due to the probe’s position in deep space, the antenna’s location in the Southern Hemisphere, and Voyager’s 2 1970s technology, DSS43 in Australia is the only facility that has the necessary antenna powerful enough and capable of communicating with the spacecraft.
Brad Arnold, DSN project manager at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in Southern California stated,
“What makes this task unique is that we’re doing work at all levels of the antenna, from the pedestal at ground level all the way up to the feedcones at the center of the dish that extend above the rim. This test communication with Voyager 2 definitely tells us that things are on track with the work we’re doing.”
Brad Arnold
The Voyager 2 spacecraft, which was launched in August 1977, has been gone from Earth for more than 43 years visiting Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and is now 125 astronomical units from our planet, roughly 125 times the distance between the Earth and Sun.
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