Energizer bunnies still goin’ at it.

We're gonna take a little ride on the Solar Boat
Bring your scepter, bring your thunderbolt
We'll see the eye in the canopy, the morning star
The edge of the void, it's not too far
We'll see the source of the Nile which is in Tibet
And maybe we'll see the Shanghai Express

c'mon let ride

~manZman

Can you hear me now?

On Oct. 29, mission operators sent a series of commands to NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft for the first time since mid-March. The spacecraft has been flying solo while the 70-meter-wide (230-foot-wide) radio antenna used to talk to it has been offline for repairs and upgrades. Voyager 2 returned a signal confirming it had received the "call" and executed the commands without issue.

The call to Voyager 2 was a test of new hardware recently installed on Deep Space Station 43, the only dish in the world that can send commands to Voyager 2. Located in Canberra, Australia, it is part of NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN), a collection of radio antennas around the world used primarily to communicate with spacecraft operating beyond the Moon. Since the dish went offline, mission operators have been able to receive health updates and science data from Voyager 2, but they haven't been able to send commands to the far-flung probe, which has traveled billions of miles from Earth since its 1977 launch.

Among the upgrades to DSS43, as the dish is known, are two new radio transmitters. One of them, which is used to talk with Voyager 2, hasn't been replaced in over 47 years.

www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-contacts-voyager-2-using-upgraded-deep-space-network-dish