NASA has fired up the thrusters aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft - the only human-made object in interstellar space - for the first time in 37 years. Since 2014, engineers have noticed that the thrusters Voyager 1 has been using to orient the spacecraft, called "attitude control thrusters," have been degrading. However, since Voyager 1's last planetary encounter was Saturn, the Voyager team had not needed to use the TCM thrusters since November 8, 1980. On November 29, they learned the TCM thrusters worked perfectly and just as well as the attitude control thrusters. The plan going forward is to switch to the TCM thrusters in January.

Source: dna December 02, 2017 05:26 UTC