NASA: The Voyager-2 probe is alive and sends greetings from the mysterious end of the world

NASA scientists have been unable to establish a connection with the Voyager-2 probe since January this year.

Then there were problems with communication, the device entered the safety mode and did not perform the planned maneuver.

The probe was to be rotated 360 degrees to calibrate the magnetic field instrument.

This means that the two power-hungry systems were running at the same time, exhausting the available energy resources.

This is probably what contributed to the problems, and it would not be unusual, because it is not the first time that space devices have lost communication with Earth, if not for the fact that Voyager-2 is now as much as 18.5 billion kilometers from Earth.

If scientists send a command to the probe, the signal does not reach it until 17 hours.

Of course, it is also out of the question to send astronauts there who will get things done quickly and efficiently. At the end of January, one of the aforementioned power-hungry systems was quickly connected to the probe and turned off, allowing some of the scientific instruments to be turned on.

The second system was also shut down later.

The final device performed the correctly planned maneuver.

However, scientists in the following months had no reason to be delighted.

Due to the pandemic, no connections were made to the spacecraft, so no one knew what condition it was in. The problem was the modernization of the Deep Space Station 43 (DSS43) communication system, which is located in Australia.

It is currently the only antenna capable of connecting to the probe.

The pandemic delayed the work on the system and thus the lack of contact with the probe lasted as long as 8 months.

Fortunately, astronomers have just managed to connect to Voyager-2.

The device sent greetings from the mysterious interstellar space. In November, NASA announced that Voyager-2 had sent the first major message from this space.

Scientists received a data packet that slightly disturbed their ideas about this part of the solar system.

It turns out that the measuring instruments still record the solar wind particles, despite having already defeated the heliopause.

Scientists are very surprised, because nothing like that happened with Voyager-1. Now both probes have already passed the Kuiper Belt and are headed towards the Oort Cloud.

It will take them at least another 80 years to reach its outer space, and travel 13,000 years.

When that happens, we will be able to say that they have left the Solar System for good. Voyager probes get to know not only the mysterious and unknown boundary of the heliosphere, but also spectacular pictures of the largest planets of the Solar System.

So NASA decided not to write off these devices.

The agency intends to maintain contact with them for at least 5 more years.

In 2025, problems with the proper functioning of the instruments installed on them will begin, due to the inexorable decline in the efficiency of small nuclear power plants, or rather radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which provide them with valuable energy.

In the coming years, the agency intends to gradually turn off individual instruments in order to save valuable energy for carrying out the most important mission objectives.