AkaSci 🛰️Jul 28, 2023

Oops! Earth has temporarily lost contact with the Voyager 2 spacecraft.

A series of planned commands sent to the spacecraft on July 21 inadvertently caused its antenna to get mispointed by 2°. NASA can no longer send commands or receive data from Voyager 2 via the DSN.

Voyager 2 is programmed to reset its orientation periodically to keep its antenna pointing at Earth; the next reset will occur on Oct 15, which should restore communications.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/sunspot/2023/07/28/mission-update-voyager-2-communications-pause/
#Voyager
1/n

Mission Update: Voyager 2 Communications Pause – The Sun Spot

Show threadSteven SandovalJul 28, 2023
@AkaSci “A series of planned commands sent to the spacecraft on July 21 inadvertently...” — another successful failure. #voyager #voyager2 #nasa
Show threadAriaflame
@baltakatei @AkaSci Let us all hope not to be judged solely on our the mistakes we make but on our actions on the whole. I certainly make mistakes. It's not exactly easy reprogramming at that distance.
Jul 29, 2023 at 3:43pmWeb
Show threadAlexander The 1stJul 29, 2023

@ariaflame @baltakatei @AkaSci Right; if anything, I'm more shocked it doesn't happen more often.

They've essentially been solving the "Program compiles on first try, and runs correctly first try" every time they've been successful.