More than a week after accidentally cutting off communications with the Voyager 2 probe, NASA officials heard a hopeful signal that may allow them to reestablish contact with the interstellar traveler months ahead of schedule.
On Aug. 1, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Twitter account confirmed that engineers had received a transmission called a carrier signal from Voyager 2 — which is currently cruising beyond the edge of the solar system more than 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) from Earth.
“A bit like hearing the spacecraft’s ‘heartbeat,’ it confirms the spacecraft is still broadcasting, which engineers expected,” JPL officials tweeted.
This “heartbeat” signal indicated that Voyager 2 is still functioning even after a series of planned operations on July 21 accidentally angled the probe’s antenna about two degrees away from Earth, all but cutting off communications between Voyager and NASA’s Deep Space Network — the international array of radio antennas that support NASA’s interplanetary missions.
Voyager 2 and its twin Voyager 1 were launched into space in August and September 1977, respectively, 16 days apart from one another
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