NASA says its huge dish antenna in Canberra is on the lookout for any stray signals from Voyager 2 after losing contact with the spacecraft.

Hurtling ever deeper into interstellar space, Voyager 2 has been out of touch ever since flight controllers accidentally sent a wrong command more than a week ago that tilted its antenna away from Earth. The spacecraft’s antenna shifted a mere two per cent, but it was enough to cut communications.

Although it’s considered a long shot, NASA said its antenna in Canberra has been given the task to look for signals from Voyager 2, currently more than 19 billion kilometres away. It takes more than 18 hours for a signal to reach Earth from so far away.

This week the Canberra antenna – part of NASA’s Deep Space Network – also will bombard Voyager 2’s vicinity with the correct command, in hopes it hits its mark, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the Voyager missions.

Otherwise, NASA will have to wait until October for an automatic spacecraft reset that should restore communication, according to officials.

Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 to explore the outer planets, just a couple weeks ahead of its identical twin, Voyager 1.

Still in touch with Earth, Voyager 1 is now nearly 24 billion kilometres away, making it humanity’s most distant spacecraft.