Next hardware reset and automatic reorientation for Voyager 2 is October 15th. Yes the device automatically resets itself about four to five times a year. Communications are expected to be reestablished then.
Wikipedia states: "In July 2023, communication with Voyager 2 was lost when flight control pointed its antenna away from Earth, moving it by 2 degrees away from Earth. The NASA dish antenna in Canberra is being used to search for the space probe and will be used to saturate its location with commands to re-align the probe's antenna in an attempt to re-establish the radio link. If NASA fails to contact the probe, it is expected that an automatic system on Voyager 2 will direct its dish toward Earth in October 2023."
So essentially someone probably wanted to move it one way and it moved the other. It should automatically reposition itself in contact with NASA in 2 months. It's amazing the foresight we had in 1977 to write in all sorts of catch-alls... In 2 months we'll get back in contact with the probe and it will have its own place, hanging out with aliens.
Sounds like it's a recoverable error (if the scientists can't do it the spacecraft has an automated process that'll kick in in October.) Still, I can't imagine what that must feel like.
Wow! Wondering how the guy is being treated who sent the wrong command. I did it once at my work and people were acting really Weird. In my defense, I never really liked the job.
This. And even then there should be procedures in place to essentially make it impossible to send the wrong inputs.
It's like when an intern accidentally drops the production database. It's not the interns fault for sending the wrong command. It's the managements fault for not restricting access in the first place.
Yeah all jokes aside this is a actually pretty big loss for the scientific community. Assuming it's completely unrecoverable. We blew our chance to actually measure the conditions in interstellar space and see if it lines up with our theories, and another probe is not only not planned for the foreseeable future by any space agency, it will also take decades to get to where Voyager 2 is now.
Edit: Nevermind, see the other comment. It's likely not permanently lost!
Wow, I just read the wiki. It has a 64 Megabyte tape storage, so after it realigns the antenna they can receive the data they've missed. Pretty state of the art for 1977. I wonder how they shielded it from radiation. The fuel source of the reactor lasts probably until 2026. After that, it'll travel as a brick, most likely long after humans rm -rf'd