Voyager 1 Fires Up Thrusters After 37 Years

On 02/12/2017 12:04, Paul Schlyter wrote:
On Fri, 1 Dec 2017 17:41:21 -0800 (PST), palsing
wrote:
This is so cool!


https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.p...ource=iContact
&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NASAJPL&utm_content =daily20171201-1

"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..."

Otoh, Voyager hasn't been subjected to the same amount of weathering
that a car sitting unused in a garage for 37 years would have been. It's
even doubtful whether the garage itself would have survived for so long
without maintenance...

Metal surfaces touching in a hard vacuum have a bad habit of cold
welding themselves together if you wait long enough.

http://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_Publ...g_under_Vacuum

--
Regards,
Martin Brown