3 August

1998: On 3 August contact was re-established with the ESA/NASA SOHO spacecraft following six weeks of silence. Signals sent through the DSN station at Canberra, Australia, were answered at 22:51 UT in the form of bursts of carrier signal lasting from 2 to 10 seconds.

Back in June 1998, after completing its nominal two-year mission in April, ground controllers lost contact with the SOHO spacecraft during routine maintenance operations, and the satellite went into Emergency Sun Reacquisition (ESR) mode.

When this happens, the spacecraft automatically tries to point itself towards the Sun again by firing its attitude control thrusters under the guidance of an on-board Sun sensor. Efforts to re-establish nominal operations did not succeed and telemetry was lost, not to be re-established for several weeks.