CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA — Starting early this month, Voyager 2 will stop receiving commands from NASA, the space agency announced in a news release on March 5.<br /><br />This is because the transmitter that sends commands to Voyager 2, the DSS43 radio antenna near Canberra, Australia, will undergo "critical upgrades" over the next 11 months.<br /><br />As Voyager 2 travels in space, the radio antenna won't be able to send commands to the space probe while it is being updated. The spacecraft is currently flying in a downward direction relative to our planet's orbital plane, which means it can only be in contact with the radio antenna site in Australia.<br /><br />During this time, the Voyager team will put the spacecraft into a state of inactivity, which will still allow the spacecraft to send back scientific data to the team during the next 11 months.<br /><br />NASA said in the news release that the radio antenna's transmitters and other parts need to be replaced and upgraded as they are 40 years old and are "increasingly unreliable."<br /><br />The DSS43 antenna is part of the U.S. space agency's deep space network, which is used to communicate and receive information from faraway spacecraft.<br /><br />NASA said the upgrades will also benefit future space missions such as the Artemis lunar missions and Mars 2020 rover mission.<br /><br />The upgrades on the DSS43 radio antenna are expected to be complete by January of 2021.
