> While the heartbeat signal has reassured Nasa that the probe is still working, it is not yet responding to new commands. The next hope of making contact with

> While the heartbeat signal has reassured Nasa that the probe is still working, it is not yet responding to new commands. The next hope of making contact with the spacecraft will come this week when the Canberra dish, part of Nasa’s deep space network, beams the correct command in the direction of Voyager 2 in the hope of reaching the probe’s antenna, according to the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. > Nasa concedes that the attempt to make contact through the huge dish antenna in Canberra is a long shot. If that effort comes to nothing, as engineers expect, mission controllers will have to wait until October, when the spacecraft should reset automatically and restore communications. Also, signals take more than 18 hours to travel one-way.