Voyager 2 DSN Coverage after April 2010, Only through the Canberra DSN ... Options

[dmuller]

Whilst extracting data for the "notional DSN coverage" of my realtime simulations, I stumbled over (the probably widely known) fact that from around April 2010, only the Canberra DSN station will be able to communicate with Voyager 2 as it is that far south of the ecliptic by then. At least they will get 24 hours coverage of Voyager 2! Might be a selling point to maintain and upgrade the antennas there ...

21 Mar 2009
30 Sep 2011

[tasp]

Yes, I recall the 'stuck bit' problem from the Uranus flyby. We have also had cosmic ray bit flips cause problems too, and perhaps a simple replay of the current software load uplinked from Canberra (nice to know about that constraint) might be all it takes to fix the problem. The expertise at this end is also significant too. If the science data coming down can be 'unscrambled' like the Galileo pics, or the compressed Uranus pictures, then maybe the problem isn't worth fixing due to the risk of introducing another problem.

I have considerable affection for the "old girl" and hate to see her cut loose, but we must be mindful the craft has been out there for 33 years and there is a certain inevitability to the situation.

I am fascinated though with the almost complimentary flight paths of V1 and V2 moving away from the ecliptic, and wonder if this enhances the analysis and significance of the the data from both sufficiently to make a better case for keeping V2 working for as long as V1 is working too. Regarding the desirability of having an engineering model that far out, I am not sure you get as much concatenation with 2 craft as you do with the science data, but maybe you do.