NASA’s facility in Australia successfully reoriented Voyager 2, receiving science and telemetry data confirming the spacecraft’s normal operation and expected trajectory.
NASA’s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia, sent the equivalent of an interstellar “shout” more than 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) to Voyager 2, instructing the spacecraft to reorient itself and turn its antenna back to Earth. With a one-way light time of 18.5 hours for the command to reach Voyager, it took 37 hours for mission controllers to learn whether the command worked. At 12:29 a.m. EDT on August 4, the spacecraft began returning science and telemetry data, indicating it is operating normally and that it remains on its expected trajectory.
NASA’s Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex (CDSCC) features a number of ‘big dish’ antennas that are required daily to receive data from; and transmit commands to; a wide variety of spacecraft. In 1987, Deep Space Station 43 (DSS-43) was expanded from a 64-meter diameter antenna to a 70-meter diameter one to bolster its capabilities for Voyager 2’s 1989 encounter with Neptune.
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2 Comments
WOW !
Double WOW!