In a dramatic bit of improvisation, NASA’ Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, has managed to reestablish communications with the Voyager 2 spacecraft 12.3 billion miles (19.9 billion km) from Earth after losing contact on July 21.

On August 4, 2023, NASA engineers managed to make contact with the Voyager 2 robotic probe even though previous estimates were that this would not be possible until October 15. Contact was lost on July 21 after a series of commands sent included an error that caused the spacecraft’s antenna to point about two degrees away from Earth – a small shift that still managed to prevent the craft from maintaining radio contact.

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The hope was that everything aboard Voyager 2 would continue to function normally without guidance from Earth until a preset program would make the probe realign itself on Earth on October 15. Since two and a half months is a long time to keep one’s fingers crossed that something wouldn’t go wrong, Mission Control decided to take some active measures.

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