NASA restores contact with Voyager 2 spacecraft after mistake led to weeks of silence

NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft resumed communication after two weeks of silence due to a wrong command. Controllers sent a new command to repoint the antenna and it worked, with Voyager 2 sending back data. The spacecraft has been exploring the outer solar system since 1977 and may still be alive and well for its 50th anniversary in 2027.

NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft was back chatting it up on Friday after flight controllers corrected a mistake that had led to weeks of silence.

Hurtling ever deeper into interstellar space billions of miles away, Voyager 2 stopped communicating two weeks ago. Controllers sent the wrong command to the 46-year-old spacecraft and tilted its antenna away from Earth.

On Wednesday, NASA's Deep Space Network sent a new command in hopes of repointing the antenna, using the highest powered transmitter at the huge radio dish antenna in Australia. Voyager 2's antenna needed to be shifted a mere 2 degrees.

It took more than 18 hours for the command to reach Voyager 2 -- more than 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometres) away -- and another 18 hours to hear back.

The long shot paid off. On Friday, the spacecraft started returning data again, according to officials at California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"I just sort of sighed. I melted in the chair," project manager Suzanne Dodd told The Associated Press.

"Voyager's back," project scientist Linda Spilker chimed in.