Space is big.
Like.
Really big.
Of the many probes, orbiters, and surveyors the people of Earth have sent into space to
explore our solar system, an uncomfortable number have been lost.
Lost spacecraft make people crazy, engineers included.
We spend millions of dollars to send these things to a very specific place, how do we
just… lose them?
What happens if we lose things in space?
If they’re millions of miles away and are far too small to see with telescopes, what
do we do?
Usually, lost means loss of contact.
It doesn’t always mean we don’t know where something is.
Engineers and mathematicians calculate the trajectory of everything we send into space.
But those calculations aren’t perfect (sorry, y’all), so if a spacecraft stops talking
to us at some point, it can drift away from our calculations… which brings us back to:
Space is big.
The losses range from the Soviet, Zond 3 which sent pictures of the far side of the moon
for the first time, but was lost on the way to Mars; to NASA’s infamous Mars Climate
Orbiter which got lost because NASA’s teams mixed up metric and english units; and even
a Japanese probe named Akatsuki which was lost trying to orbit Venus… … but, then
it was found again!
And being found again is the sweetest in space.
The ‘verse is scary for little probes just trying to get where they’re going.
So, when we’re sending spacecraft to Mars, Pluto, or even just down to the International
Space Station, we give them lots of ways to tell us where they are.
The Mars Science Laboratory, that carried Curiosity to Mars, had multiple antennas to
communicate with Earth and other spacecraft already at Mars that could relay the signals
back.
The Curiosity rover itself also has multiple antennas to talk to spacecraft in Mars’
orbit, as well as Earth directly through the Deep Space Network.
Again, Engineers work really hard and design spacecraft to make sure that if something
goes wrong, they still won’t lose it.
To you and me, when we hear something is “lost in space” we probably get a sense of dread
(and not just because of the terrible 1998 film).
It just seems too daunting a task to find something that’s LOST IN SPACE.
But NASA’s got skillz.
And there’s nothing more hype than finding something you thought was gone forever.
For example, Chandrayaan-1, an Indian Space Research Organization probe currently orbiting
the moon, was just found by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory!
It had been missing since 2009.
The ISRO lost contact with it, and they simply couldn’t find it again, so they ended their
mission.
But then, JPL shot a large amount of microwaves at the moon from a dish in California, and
picked them up in West Virginia.
They analyzed the bounce back, and found ol’ Chandy orbiting 200 kilometers above the moon.
Boop.
There it was.
It once was lost, but now is… well it’s still lost, actually because they can’t
communicate with it, I guess?
That’s not typical.
These are computer systems, a big part of the problem is pinpointing their exact location
at that point, you just give it a call and (hopefully, it picks up).
This happened in a less gloriously scientific way with a solar-research sat called STEREO-B
-- part of a pair: Stereo A and B.
The twins were programmed to fly around the sun and take 3D pictures of mass ejections
and flares.
Unfortunately, “B” was lost in 2014 when scientists tested its reset function and it
just… never really came back.
They knew its orbit, and where it would be, but couldn’t talk to it because the sun
was in the way, and it wasn’t responding to their hails.
Fast-forward two years… scientists were still tracking where it should be, and kept
sending messages its way and eventually, they got lucky!
In 2016, Stereo-B came back online.
There was enough charge in its batteries, and its antenna was pointing in the right
direction, so they got a ping back!
These computer systems are designed to live in one of the harshest environments known
to man, they can be the size of small SUVs like Curiosity, or an oven-sized cube like
Chandrayaan-1.
But space is big, and sometimes things get lost.
If we’re lucky, and keep sending signals, we hopefully build them smart enough to be
found.
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