NASA has reestablished contact with the Voyager 2 spacecraft after weeks of silence. The historic probe launched in 1977, had been out of contact since July 21, when a software glitch caused its antenna to shift slightly. This meant that the spacecraft was no longer pointing at Earth, and NASA was unable to communicate with it. To restore contact, NASA sent a "shout" across interstellar space to Voyager 2, more than 20 billion km or 12.3 billion miles away, instructing it to turn its antenna back to Earth. With a one-way light time of 18.5 hours for the command to reach Voyager, it took 37 hours for mission controllers to learn whether the command worked. Finally, on August 4, NASA received a signal from Voyager 2, indicating that the spacecraft is operating normally and that it remains on its expected trajectory.
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