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...
Lots of formal processes capture what would otherwise be informal design decisions elsewhere. In this case, they probably have reams of pages detailing a failure mode effects analysis (FMEA). One mode is “oops, we sent the wrong command” and the document would define the specific design mitigation(s) for that outcome until it reaches an accepted risk threshold.
Some failures are fairly common, and individual failures might be fairly inert but have more serious consequences if they are cascaded with another specific failure.. for example, cruise control enable + failure of steering wheel control pad _and_ previously undetected failure of brake sensor/brake light circuit = cruise control stuck ON. Actually, this failure is inert if the cruise control is OFF when it happens. Contrived example but you get the idea ...
I have seen a lot of FMEDA (and other tool) use lately to combat concerns with cascading failure, but not sure what's currently standard at NASA or how they deal with this. I would think cascading failure would be their expected scenario on a 10+ year unmanned mission.