On 04/12/2017 02:42, Scott M. Kozel wrote:
On Friday, December 1, 2017 at 8:41:25 PM UTC-5, palsing wrote:

This is so cool!

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.p...ly201 71201-1

"If you tried to start a car that's been sitting in a garage for decades, you might not expect the engine to respond. But a set of thrusters aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft successfully fired up Wednesday after 37 years without use..."

So the spacecraft stayed aligned properly for the last 37 years,
without using any thrusters to correct the alignment? If not
aligned properly the antenna won't be able to communicate with
the Earth.

No they were using a different set of attitude control thrusters for
fine adjustments but they have (almost) run out of juice and are getting
less effective with each use. So they wanted to try out the alternatives
whilst they still have some attitude adjustment left to play with.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown