BY MARCIA DUNN
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — After days of silence, NASA has heard from Voyager 2 in interstellar space billions of miles away.
Flight controllers accidentally sent a wrong command nearly two weeks ago that tilted the spacecraft’s antenna away from Earth and severed contact.
NASA’s Deep Space Network, giant radio antennas across the globe, picked up a “heartbeat signal,” meaning the 46-year-old craft is alive and operating, project manager Suzanne Dodd said in an email Tuesday.
The news “buoyed our spirits,” Dodd said. Flight controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California will now try to turn Voyager 2’s antenna back toward Earth.
