Data downlink from Voyager 2 lost due to a pointing error on its antenna: https://blogs.nasa.gov/sunspot/2023/07/28/mission-update-voyager-2-communications-pause/
Although if I understand this correctly, the carrier is still detectable - it's just faint enough that the modulation isn't.
The spacecraft is expected to automatically repoint in mid-October.
Voyager 2 was able to receive the "repoint now" command.
QT @canberradsn
2023 August 4
Two-way communications have been restored with #Voyager2
The good news was received through our 70-metre antenna dish, Deep Space Station 43 at 2:29pm AEST, 4th August. #DSS43
@barrygoldman1 @canberradsn The 70-m DSN antennas at the Deep Space Network sites were designed specifically to communicate with Voyager 2 - they were originally smaller and were upgraded to their current size before the Neptune flyby in 1989.
A few years ago, #DSS43 was further updated with a new 400 kW transmitter to be able to keep sending commands to the spacecraft.
(#DSS13 in California has a similar-power transmitter, but can't see Voyager 2 anymore. And the frequency is different.)
@barrygoldman1 @canberradsn By my accounting, #DSS43 when uplinking with Voyager 2 puts out the second-most-intense radio beam now available.
The first-most-intense is the Goldstone solar system radar on #DSS13, but it is again on the wrong side of the planet.
(Subject to caveats about some military radars. The Arecibo Observatory had a more powerful transmitter, but it is now lost.)
Michael Busch
Barry Goldman