We lost contact with a cubesat at 02:41 UTC and for the next four hours, everything in mission control went quiet. It wasn't dramatic. It was just a blip on the downlink that didn't come back.

The quiet part

You don't panic in mission control. You check the pass schedule, re-point a dish, and wait for the next window. Satellites don't answer when they're below the horizon.

It came back

At the next pass, the carrier locked and the housekeeping stream poured in. The battery had dipped, the transmitter had reset, and the satellite had simply gone to sleep for a few hours. We all went home at dawn, tired and relieved. That's the job.