NASA hears signal from Voyager 2 spacecraft after mistakenly cutting contact(apnews.com)
apnews.com
NASA hears signal from Voyager 2 spacecraft after mistakenly cutting contact
https://apnews.com/article/nasa-voyager-spacecraft-regains-contact-addc3ad28f1d6bec03210b587f69663d
3 comments
> 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 2% off-kilter.
That's pretty smart to have such an automatic restart configured. I wonder what the details are - do they pre-program an antenna attitude for a specific moment in time, then do the reset if it's not overridden before the target date?
That's pretty smart to have such an automatic restart configured. I wonder what the details are - do they pre-program an antenna attitude for a specific moment in time, then do the reset if it's not overridden before the target date?
Does this mean low gain is sending a heartbeat but high gain is still misdirected until reset in October? From the diagram on this page [1], it seems like dish positioning is critical to both antennas.
[1] https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft/instruments/...
[1] https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft/instruments/...
15 billion miles / 186,282 miles per second = 80,414 seconds