If a 'million dollar' satellite suddenly disappears, what will NASA do?

Every satellite or probe launched into space consumes NASA to millions of dollars. But what if they lose contact?

Over more than half a century of development, aerospace science has made significant progress.

Which must mention the NASA, ESA and some organizations have launched a series of satellites, probes . into the vast black space outside the Earth.

Each such ship can cost millions of dollars, and that is the money needed to bring knowledge from the universe to mankind. However, what if one of those satellites / probes suddenly went missing? If the ship had traveled millions of kilometers, beyond the observational ability of the telescope, what could humanity do?

What if one of the satellites / probes suddenly went missing?

How is a satellite called "missing"?

"Missing" here is understood as "out of touch" , when signals from satellites or probes suddenly disappear. But this does not mean that we do not know where it is. Because the journey is already set up, experts can fully calculate and predict the position of the satellite after missing it.

Calculation may not be perfect! At some point, the ship could completely deviate from our calculation.

So, NASA had to build a powerful interplanetary radar system , with the ability to track asteroids from millions of miles away. When they found it, they could find a way to reconnect through radio waves.

Interplanetary radar.

However, when all became useless, that was when the ship had disappeared forever. In fact, this happens quite often, from the Soviet ship Zond 3 missing on the road to Mars, to NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter disappearing due to a calculation error. After all, one of the missing spacecraft is too small, while the universe is really great.

But there are also cases of satellites and people coming back together. For example, NASA's ISEE-3 satellite has been missing for more than 17 years, thanks to the constant efforts of experts who reconnect to each other "like never had a separation".

ISEE-3 satellite has been missing for 17 years, then contacted people again.

In short, every time you launch any satellite or probe - even if it's just an international ISS space station, NASA also has a lot of different communication methods. This is to limit the risk of "burning wrong" a few million dollars, just because the communication department is faulty.