this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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NASA’s Voyager 2 has lost communication with Earth due to an unintentional shift in its antenna direction. The next programmed orientation adjustment on October 15 is expected to restore communication, while Voyager 1 continues to operate as usual.

A series of scheduled commands directed at NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft on July 21 led to an unintentional change in antenna direction. Consequently, the antenna moved 2 degrees off course from Earth, causing the spacecraft to lose its ability to receive commands or transmit data back to our planet.

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[–] Parabola 162 points 1 year ago (4 children)

As a software engineer I feel for the person who accidentally sent the wrong value and caused an icon to be offline, potentially forever.

[–] [email protected] 115 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not going to be offline forever. It'll reorient in a couple months. It was designed to do this when comms are lost. Still a little scary though.

[–] foggy 29 points 1 year ago (3 children)

This assumes their understanding of what caused the problem is accurate.

Should it be ever so slightly imprecise, it could mean we lose contact forever.

[–] [email protected] 81 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

This is one of those things that sounds meaningful, but can be said about literally any problem in any system. Not all knowledge requires the same level of precision for confidence.

If the engineers at NASA who are familiar with the system say this is a known error state that will be fixed the next time the system designed to correct it fires on its set schedule, there's not a whole lot added by saying sure, but what if they're wrong?

It's just restating the table stakes of existence.

[–] glimse 59 points 1 year ago (4 children)

But what if I, armchair scientist on Lemmy, sees a flaw in the plan of some of the greatest engineers in the world? Doesn't the world deserve to know what I think about the communications system I just became aware of today?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Lol. The knee-jerk contrarianism online really gets under my skin, especially when it's towards experts.

Like yeah, sometimes experts are wrong or systems don't behave as expected. But framing that as some sort of erudite insight really bugs me.

"I hope the recovery system works!" doesn't need to be rewritten as "Mmm yes. But what these engineers haven't considered is the possibility that they are wrong".

[–] glimse 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I had a laugh at this line:

It's just restating the table stakes of existence.

Brilliantly put. It's like saying to a stranger on an airplane, "If these pilots don't know how to fly, we are gonna die!"

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[–] Resistentialism 17 points 1 year ago

I don't think I'm prepared to lose another space robot.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

rm really predates the start of voyager 2.

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[–] AbidanYre 15 points 1 year ago

They're going to have a very tough time sleeping between now and mid-October.

[–] faethon 68 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Unmonitored, it will slowly evolve into V'ger now!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sometime between now and 2271!

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[–] Candelestine 40 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's actually a group of alien teenagers following it and occasionally giving it a spin or nudge, just to fuck with us. They think its hilarious.

[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot 5 points 1 year ago

Fucking Neutrinos.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago

It'll reconnect and align back the next time it pings back to Earth. It was designed for this kind of contingency. It's very unlikely its lost forever.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (6 children)

What a great project. Really puts perspective on what can be accomplished with public funds and vision. Meanwhile shit like Starlink exists and lasts maybe a couple of years. I wonder whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy???

[–] Thadrax 31 points 1 year ago

As much as I’d like to agree, those projects have very different goals and constraints.

[–] bassomitron 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As much as I hate Musk and most of his idiot projects, Starlink isn't that bad of an idea. Traditional SATCOM internet is more expensive for shittier service. From what I've read, Starlink has been fairly reliable, not overly expensive, and performance is pretty solid. Sure, in areas that already have "excellent" terrestrial internet providers available, it is pretty useless. But for rural areas, it's a godsend.

[–] cmbabul 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It’s 100% a good idea, it just shouldn’t be privately owned

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Because they're low orbit communication satellites that require a lot of fuel to maintain said orbit, and are designed to deorbit pretty quickly so as to not pollute LEO with junk?

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[–] Alwaysfallingupyup 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have you tried shouting at it?

[–] PunnyName 4 points 1 year ago

Or turning it off, waiting a bit, and back on again?

[–] Astrealix 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wonder if we could ping it off one of the other satellites we have around other planets to get a message out to it. Fingers crossed it's back in contact by October and we don't have to try weird shit though

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I would imagine 2° at 12 billion miles means it's almost certainly not pointing at anything man-made anymore, but I'm also not an astrophysicist so ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Being that far out I don't even think we could go out and fix it anymore

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lol no we most certainly cannot go out and fix it.

[–] EnmaAi22 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

yet

But by the time we could there would be zero reason to anyway

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

And even if it was pointed at random human equipment it’s so far away that you need a very special radio and antenna; not just any old satellite is necessarily going to do the trick. I think the signal strength is around -196db iirc so incredibly faint, and The antennas they use to communicate with voyager are massive.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

If I read it correctly, the probe checks periodically, and if it loses contact, it uses the location of known stars to point its antenna back towards the Earth. If that doesn't work, it's gone.

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