VOYAGER 2 : Lost Communication

[LadyTevar]

Wrong Command tilts Voyager 2's Disk off-course

TL:DR - they sent the wrong code, Voyager's communication disk is now 2degrees off where it should be, so we're not getting any messages, and whatever it's sending is missing the target by (at this point) millions of miles.

Is this how we get V'ger?

[Lord Revan]

I think we need to send more probes named Voyager before we get that

[Batman]

Only in the prime timeline. Since we obviously DON'T live in the prime timeline (the lack of the eugenic wars is something of a giveaway)I wouldn't be too certain about that

[EnterpriseSovereign]

NASA hears signal from Voyager 2 spacecraft after mistakenly cutting contact

After days of silence, NASA has heard from Voyager 2 in interstellar space billions of miles away.

Flight controllers accidentally sent a wrong command nearly two weeks ago that tilted the spacecraft’s antenna away from Earth and severed contact.

But now, NASA's Deep Space Network, giant radio antennas across the globe, picked up a “heartbeat signal," meaning the 46-year-old craft is alive and operating, project manager Suzanne Dodd said in an email on Tuesday.

The news “buoyed our spirits,” Ms Dodd said.

Light controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California will now try to turn Voyager 2’s antenna back toward Earth.

If the command doesn’t work - and controllers doubt it will - they’ll have to wait until October for an automatic spacecraft reset.

The antenna is only a mere 2% off-kilter.

The craft - one of only two to have ever made it beyond our solar system - is more than 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometres) away.

It takes more than 18 hours for a signal to reach Earth from so far away.

In the coming week, the Canberra antenna - part of NASA's Deep Space Network - will also 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 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away, making it humanity's most distant spacecraft.

Both spacecraft were designed to find and study the edge of our solar system.

Voyager 1 has been used to study Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, according to NASA.

In 2018, more than 40 years after its launch, Voyager 2 entered interstellar space - the parts of the universe between star systems - in 2018.

Voyager 2 was the first human-made object to fly past the planet Uranus. The spacecraft discovered more than a dozen new moons during its years in space.

[LadyTevar]

They keep saying it's "Only 2% off course", but they don't explain what that MEANS over such a long distance.

Hell, cutting a piece of fabric, if you're 2% off course, by the time you've cut 3yards you've got a difference of 1-2inches of fabric (which is why you draw a LINE to follow, dammit!)

So, they really should be explaining for the math-deficient how that 2% error magnifies with distance. Thankfully, Voyager is broadcasting in a cone, so we got brushed with the edge of the 'heartbeat'. And, while Canberra will be broadcasting in a wide cone, Voyager could still miss the message if the receiver is 'cupped' the wrong way.

[LaCroix]

Voy2 is about 19 billion km away from us - a 2% misalignment means that it is aiming at a spot about 2/3 of a billion km off target...
Which is like 4 times the distance to the sun, so it's pretty much aiming at Jupiter, to put it in a ballpark...

[LadyTevar]

Voy2 is about 19 billion km away from us - a 2% misalignment means that it is aiming at a spot about 2/3 of a billion km off target...
Which is like 4 times the distance to the sun, so it's pretty much aiming at Jupiter, to put it in a ballpark...

YES!
But none of the articles are explaining that.
Hell, the only reason we might have even HEARD the heartbeat is it reflected off Jupiter or something!

[LaCroix]

Voy2 is about 19 billion km away from us - a 2% misalignment means that it is aiming at a spot about 2/3 of a billion km off target...
Which is like 4 times the distance to the sun, so it's pretty much aiming at Jupiter, to put it in a ballpark...

YES!
But none of the articles are explaining that.
Hell, the only reason we might have even HEARD the heartbeat is it reflected off Jupiter or something!

To clarify - I translated 2% to 2 degrees, as 90 degree means 100% not on target. Back of the napkin, but since 2% without floating digits is already FAAAAR into the BotN calc territory given the distances involved, it is as good as you can get...

Yeah, at this distance, even a 1 arcsecond error (1/5000 degree divergence) collimated laser beam would be a cone with a 100km radius, and would be scattered enough to be a couple thousand km off target and still hit it with a stray signal. Given that Voy2 is using radio and a dish, it is pretty much hosing the whole solar system in it's transmission, you just need to have equipment sensitive enough and isolated from any other interference.

So all we do is to swing our equipment around and find a reflection, somewhere...

Thats why they are trying the same trick in reverse - which is trickier, as there is little to bounce and scatter the signal off near voyager, and they need to get it quite close to proper alignment. Not perfect, but close enough to overcome the signal threshold. What they (most likely) are doing is sending the signal out with increasing power and in constantly slightly modified directions and hope to get the ball into the pocket.
It is a hail mary tactic, but you only need one stray asteroid at the right spot and it could work.

[LadyTevar]

And, as they've been saying, even if it doesn't work, Voyager has an automatic reset coming up in October. Assuming that manuever goes as planned, we'll have contact again in a couple months.

[Broomstick]

And... eventually we will lose all contact with it. We all hope it's later rather than sooner, but that day will inevitably come. If it is now, well, that probe performed far, far in excess of expectations.

But I hope it continues to phone home for much, much longer.

[Batman]

It'd have to on functioning 'ridiculously' long to get anywhere interesting. but given how long the thing's been operating, even having to wait until October to reestablish contact doesn't seem so bad.

[LadyTevar]

Huh... I had to doubled-check when they were launched. V-2 in August 1977, V1 in Sept 1977.
Rather ironically, New River Gorge Bridge was opened the 3rd weekend of October, 1977, and we all know what happened May 1977.

I turned 7 in Sept 1977. The Voyagers have been traveling nearly all my life, and only just a few years ago hit the edge of the Solar System.
Makes one think... and ask which one will outlive the rest?
(Hopefully the Bridge.)

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Huh... I had to doubled-check when they were launched. V-2 in August 1977, V1 in Sept 1977.
Rather ironically, New River Gorge Bridge was opened the 3rd weekend of October, 1977, and we all know what happened May 1977.

I turned 7 in Sept 1977. The Voyagers have been traveling nearly all my life, and only just a few years ago hit the edge of the Solar System.
Makes one think... and ask which one will outlive the rest?
(Hopefully the Bridge.)

Quite a lot, though you'll have to be more specific I'm afraid

[LadyTevar]

Huh... I had to doubled-check when they were launched. V-2 in August 1977, V1 in Sept 1977.
Rather ironically, New River Gorge Bridge was opened the 3rd weekend of October, 1977, and we all know what happened May 1977.

I turned 7 in Sept 1977. The Voyagers have been traveling nearly all my life, and only just a few years ago hit the edge of the Solar System.
Makes one think... and ask which one will outlive the rest?
(Hopefully the Bridge.)

Quite a lot, though you'll have to be more specific I'm afraid

I meant Star Wars, ya silly bugger.

[bilateralrope]

It'd have to on functioning 'ridiculously' long to get anywhere interesting. but given how long the thing's been operating, even having to wait until October to reestablish contact doesn't seem so bad.

Isn't it still getting interesting readings because nothing else has gone that far out ?


Though its power supply is decaying. NASA have had to decide which instruments remain powered with its dwindling power budget for a while now. Eventually there won't be enough power for anything except the radio.

[LadyTevar]

NASA FULLY BACK IN CONTACT!

Having Canberra bombard the general area with the new instructions worked, Voyager 2 got the message and turned the right direction. All is well, until they run out of power sometime "after 2025".

[Zaune]

I'm sure most of the people who helped design and build this probe are dead by now. Do you think they'd be proud it's still operational and sending useful data, or disappointed that we're still depending on it instead of building observatories on the moons of Saturn or something by now?

[bilateralrope]

How long ago did it complete the mission it was launched for ?

The main reason it's failing now is because the RTG isn't producing as much power as it used to. If Voyager 2 lasts until it runs out of power, then will have remained operational for as long as it was physically possible for it to stay operational.

They should be proud of their work.

[Solauren]

Part of me wishes we could figure out a way to turn Voyager and the other probes around and return them to Earth.

Wouldn't it be awesome to be able to go to a museum and see objects that actually left the Solar System?

[LadyTevar]

Part of me wishes we could figure out a way to turn Voyager and the other probes around and return them to Earth.

Wouldn't it be awesome to be able to go to a museum and see objects that actually left the Solar System?

OMG YES THIS!
But they really don't have the power to turn back. It was a One-Way Mission from the start, and I think even then they were trusting to gravity slingshot and solar wind + inertia to travel as far as the planets. I doubt either Voyager has enough of an engine to return to the Heliosphere, much less somewhere we could reach them.

No... sometime in the next 200yrs we might go out and grab them, assuming someone's left who cares enough.

[Broomstick]

I'm sure most of the people who helped design and build this probe are dead by now. Do you think they'd be proud it's still operational and sending useful data, or disappointed that we're still depending on it instead of building observatories on the moons of Saturn or something by now?

I would assume proud. Any time someone designs something that works and proves useful beyond original specs they're usually proud