On Sunday, December 3, 2017 at 6:42:23 PM UTC-8, 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.

If you had actually read the supplied link you would have already known this...

"Since 2014, engineers have noticed that the thrusters Voyager 1 had been using to orient the spacecraft, called "attitude control thrusters," have been degrading. Over time, the thrusters require more puffs to give off the same amount of energy. At 13 billion miles from Earth, there's no mechanic shop nearby to get a tune-up."