zlacker

>>belter+(OP)
In short, it was remote bricked, by giving it commands to rotate a bit. After successfully executing those commands - no further commands could be received, as now the antennas are not facing earth anymore.

But luckily it automatically readjust itself to earth automatically every half year exactly for these events. So on 15.10 we will know, if it is really lost. In either case, the end of its mission is near anyway, because the nuclear batteries are near its end.

edit: Nasa has a blog post on this https://blogs.nasa.gov/sunspot/2023/07/28/mission-update-voy...

>>hutzli+79
Amazing that someone thought up a solution to a hypothetical problem 46 years ago, then fired it 30 billion km away

>>swarni+Ti
The Voyager that's flying now is not necessarily the Voyager that was launched.

The hardware is the same, but they've updated, patched, and rewritten the software that's running in it throughout the years.

I'm not suggesting that the failsafe mode wasn't originally considered, and implemented, but simply that it doesn't have to be the case. They could have made changes to it over time.