NASA’s Voyager 2 Loses Contact With Mission Control

Amaze Lab

Right now the Voyager 2 Spacecraft, which was launched way back in 1977, is more than 12 billion miles away. However recently, on July 21st, NASA’s mission control lost contact with it.

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00:00 Right now the Voyager 2 spacecraft which was launched way back in 1977 is more

00:08 than 12 billion miles away. However recently on July 21st NASA's mission

00:13 control lost contact with it. According to NASA the issue is that they sent an

00:17 incorrect command to the spacecraft causing it to send its messages two

00:21 degrees in the wrong direction. And when you're that far away two degrees is

00:24 absolutely massive. Experts say that while we've lost contact with Voyager 2

00:28 for the time being we should be able to get it back. That's because the

00:31 spacecraft has a failsafe that causes it to reorient itself a few times each year.

00:36 At that point its antenna should point directly back at us but that isn't for a

00:40 while. According to NASA the next automatic reorientation should take

00:43 place on October 15th but until then it will continue its journey into space.

00:48 Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are believed to have entered interstellar

00:52 space a couple of years ago. They are each expected to continue operation

00:55 until they run out of power which some expect to occur around the year 2025.

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