How would you find a lost probe in space?

So if you were to send a probe into space and somehow you lost track of it, what are some of the more plausable methods of locating it? How would you look for a proverbial speck in the depths of space?|||Well, ..., there area couple of techniques that we have use to recover (or determine the fate of) lost probes:





1) All spacecraft (within the last 20 years) have "phone home" feature, such that, if they haven't heard from Earth after a specified interval they orient themselves to Earth and send a message requesting assistance.


2) Spacecraft BIOS's are equipped to respond to a "phone home" general broadcast from earth.


3) Ground based radar can sweep the sky for the object (if it isn't too far away).





If we can't find the probe after those attempts then it is most likely too damaged to communicate or it is has been destroyed. At that point it's declared lost.|||how do u lose a probe anyway? u send it a message to do something like to take a picture and send it back to earth. then measure the time it takes for the probe to react, that tells u how far away it is. the picture that it sends back would show you where it is or at least what its looking at: maybe an object that its near. that should tell u about where it is|||if you have contact with the probe you could use its camera's to triangulate the position using stars so you can dermine where it is. otherwise youre in a pickle. million dollar probe loose in a vast empty space.|||Locating it? Duh, it would be somewhere near Uranus!!!|||Space is endless .