Contact with NASA's Voyager 2 probe severed by technical glitch

July 31 (UPI) -- Communications with the far-flung Voyager 2 space probe have been temporarily severed due to unintended consequences resulting from routine commands, NASA says.

The U.S. space agency revealed Friday it no longer is able to communicate with the pioneering spacecraft launched in 1977 and meant to serve as an ambassador of human civilization to any extraterrestrial intelligence it may encounter.

"A series of planned commands sent to NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft on July 21 inadvertently caused the antenna to point 2 degrees away from Earth," NASA said in a mission update. "As a result, Voyager 2 is currently unable to receive commands or transmit data back to Earth."

Scientists think the situation is only temporary because the craft is programmed to auto-correct its orientation several times each year in order to keep its antenna pointed toward Earth. Its next planned reorientation is set for Oct. 15.

Voyager 2 is currently in interstellar space, located almost 12.4 billion miles from Earth. The glitch, however, has rendered it unable to with the ground antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network.

Its twin, Voyager 1, is almost 15 billion miles from Earth and continues to operate normally. It has the distinction of being the farthest human-made object from Earth and the first to reach interstellar space.

The craft are probably best known for carrying "Golden Records," a kind of time capsule intended to communicate the story of humankind to extraterrestrials. The messages are embedded on 12-inch, gold-plated "phonograph records" containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, according to NASA.

The Voyager spacecrafts remain beloved by the public and scientists because of their optimistic and idealistic missions. Their enduring appeal are evident in popular culture, with fictionalized versions of the probes appearing in first Star Trek film in 1979 and in the 1984 film Starman, in which one was responsible for bringing a benign alien played by Jeff Bridges to Earth.

Voyager 2 also remains the only spacecraft to pass close to the two outermost planets in the solar system -- Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989.