Reply To: Voyager 2: contact lost after wrong command sent

Forums Spacecraft Voyager 2: contact lost after wrong command sent Reply To: Voyager 2: contact lost after wrong command sent

#618507
Nick James
Participant

I’d put in the distance from memory. It is actually “only” 134au so that increases the angle a bit but not much. Sorry about that!

Yes, sending commands to Voyager 2 is a lot harder than receiving the telemetry. The spacecraft receiver is a bit unstable due to a capacitor failure and the noise temperature is high since the antenna is effectively looking at the Sun. The only ground station in the DSN that can command Voyager 2 is DSS-43 at Canberra. This has a huge 400kW power amplifier (the other 70-m stations have 20kW) but there are all sorts of restrictions on its use. I wouldn’t want to be a bird in the beam of that thing when it is transmitting at full power.

If you want some fun bedtime reading have a look at these links:

https://descanso.jpl.nasa.gov/DPSummary/Descanso4–Voyager_new.pdf
http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsndocs/810-005/101/101E.pdf
https://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsndocs/810-005/relnotice49.pdf
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/18956/has-dss-43-ever-been-used-in-high-power-mode-20-kw-for-an-emergency-situation

  • This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Nick James.