Update, Aug. 4, 2023: NASA has reestablished full communications with Voyager 2

I'm torn between being impressed or disappoint our furthest object is only 37-light-HOURS from earth after almost 50 years.

But it's underpowered of course. In a decade maybe something will power right past it after just a year with a solar sail or some kind of nuclear ion engine or that weird "impossible drive" they were working on

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/nasa-emdr...

Whoever came up with the idea to make the Voyager 2 reorient its antenna multiple times a year.

Can imagine it's based on past experience were they didn't do it and lost communications, like 'we don't want this happen again'?

5 days ago, the "NASA has lost communications..." articles got 450 comments on HN.

Today's "reestablished full communications" stories have less than 10.

So, so many ways in which this could be spun into stereotypes about HNer's...

EEVblog went to the CDSCC in June 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=586Zn1ct-QA

This is great news! Shout out to the Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia for sending the instruction to reorient. (I'm Australian.)