Voyager 1 Fires Up Thrusters After 37 Years

On Sunday, December 3, 2017 at 7:42:23 PM UTC-7, Scott M. Kozel wrote:

So the spacecraft stayed aligned properly for the last 37 years,
without using any thrusters to correct the alignment?

No, it used a different kind of thruster - it was decided to use these instead to
further prolong its life.

John Savard

On Sunday, December 3, 2017 at 7:42:23 PM UTC-7, Scott M. Kozel wrote:

So the spacecraft stayed aligned properly for the last 37 years,
without using any thrusters to correct the alignment?

No, it used a different kind of thruster - it was decided to use these instead to
further prolong its life.

John Savard

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."

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 read the link you will see that these are backup thrusters not used
since 1980. They have been activated to extend the life of the probe.

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