Imagination of’Voyager 2’entering the interstellar space./ Photo = Yonhap News
Communication with the NASA’s solar system probe’Voyager 2′, which is flying 18.8 billion km from Earth, resumed after 11 months.
According to the New York Times (NYT) on the 23rd (local time), the performance improvement work of the radio antenna’Deep Space Station 43′ (DSS43) of the base station in Canberra, Australia, which served as the earth control station for Voyager 2, has been completed.
Accordingly, NASA’s command transmission for the Voyager 2, which had been suspended for 11 months after the DSS43 performance improvement work began in March last year, became possible. Even during the performance improvement work, NASA continued to receive exploration data from Voyager 2 using three 34m radio antennas. However, because there is no transmission function, various commands could not be delivered.
Prior to this, NASA had never improved the performance of the DSS43 so far, but in preparation for future problems, NASA began working on an update last March.
The Voyager 2, which is continuing its exploration activities without major problems, was launched in 1977 with the twin probes Voyager 1 at full intervals. Human-made aircraft have reached the farthest distance in space and are exploring space.
According to NASA, it takes 35 hours to communicate with Voyager 2. It takes 17 hours and 35 minutes for data sent from one side to reach the other. NASA predicts that Voyager 2 will operate over the next four to eight years.
Shin Hyun-ah, reporter at Hankyung.com [email protected]
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