12.3 Billion Miles Away: NASA Has Lost Communication With Voyager 2 Spacecraft

Woland@lemm.ee to World News@lemmy.world – 535 points –
12.3 Billion Miles Away: NASA Has Lost Communication With Voyager 2 Spacecraft
scitechdaily.com

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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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?

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".

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!"

No but the experts could be right or wrong. Two possibilities so that means there's a 50/50 chance.

/s

That all depends - how many joints did you smoke before outsmarting the engineers? 🧐

I smoke two joints before I smoke two joints and then I smoke two more

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