NASA has detected a signal from Voyager 2 after nearly two weeks of silence from the interstellar spacecraft.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said on Tuesday that a series of ground antennas, part of the Deep Space Network, had registered a carrier signal from Voyager 2 on Tuesday. //

NASA said it lost contact with Voyager 2, which is traveling 12.3 billion miles away from Earth, on Friday after "a series of planned commands" inadvertently caused the craft to turn its antenna 2 degrees away from the direction of its home planet. //

What might seem like a slight error had big consequences: NASA said it wouldn't be able to communicate with the craft until October, when the satellite would go through one of its routine repositioning steps. //

Last month's command mix-up means Voyager 2 is not able to transmit data back to Earth, but it also foreshadows the craft's inevitable end an estimated three years from now.

"Eventually, there will not be enough electricity to power even one instrument," reads a NASA page documenting the spacecraft's travels. "Then, Voyager 2 will silently continue its eternal journey among the stars."

Voyager 2's sister spacecraft, Voyager 1, meanwhile, is still broadcasting and transmitting data just fine from a slightly further vantage point of 15 billion miles away.