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I'm wondering also. Based on the wording here. I suspect we have more and better telescopes than we did when it launched.

> The flight team was not certain the S-band could be detected at Earth due to the spacecraft’s distance, but engineers with the Deep Space Network were able to find it.

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Certainly, but then isn't it expected now with the new antennas? They installed some upgrade but don't know to what sensitivity it goes? Surely they do so the article must be handwavy about it if I'm understanding things correctly

Someone else commented about a wider spread in this other band, though. Perhaps the operators were not sure what that does for adsorptions and reflections by intervening dust or so?

Haven't you ever written code that you thought should work, but didn't due to a reason you couldn't foresee? I don't think the uncertainty here comes from question marks in the link budget equations but from the possibility of unforeseen problems making detection not work when it should.

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