NASA stays in touch with its space probes, like Voyager 2, through the Deep Space Network (DSN), which consists of radio receiving antennas located in three different spots globally. These locations include Goldstone in California, Robredo near Madrid, and Tidbinbilla near Canberra.
Voyager 2 can only be observed from the southern hemisphere, making the DSS-43 antenna at the Australian site the sole antenna on Earth that can communicate with the spacecraft.
Currently positioned more than 20 billion kilometers from Earth, Voyager 2 has a transmitter that outputs approximately 23 watts (around eight times more powerful than a typical cell phone). By the time a radio signal reaches Earth, it has only about one-tenth of this power.
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To detect this extremely faint signal, DSS-43 and Voyager 2’s transmitters use narrowband, high-frequency signals that are highly directional and transmitted at slow bit rates.
Advanced signal processing techniques, minimal interference, and the fact that radio signals can travel through space with little obstruction allow DSS-43 to overcome long distances.
The antenna can transmit a signal to Voyager 2 at a much higher power level (up to about 400,000 watts) than it receives. This strong output can be easily picked up by the spacecraft even at far distances.
This piece (by Elouise Pace) addresses the question, “How can we communicate with Voyager 2, which is billions of miles away?”
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