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Voyager 1 Just Fired Up its Backup Thrusters for the 1st Time in 37 Years
Space.com ^ | Mike Wall

Posted on 12/02/2017 4:37:18 PM PST by BenLurkin

Voyager 1 hadn't used its four "trajectory correction maneuver" (TCM) thrusters since November 1980, during the spacecraft's last planetary flyby — an epic encounter with Saturn. But mission team members fired them up again Tuesday (Nov. 28)...

The little engines passed the test with flying colors, NASA officials said.

"The Voyager team got more excited each time with each milestone in the thruster test," Todd Barber, a propulsion engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. "The mood was one of relief, joy and incredulity after witnessing these well-rested thrusters pick up the baton as if no time had passed at all."

As Barber's words suggest, the mission team didn’t do this out of idle curiosity. Voyager 1 — which in August 2012 became the first human-made object ever to enter interstellar space — has long been using its standard attitude-control thrusters to orient itself into the proper position to communicate with Earth. But the performance of these thrusters has been flagging for at least three years, so mission team members wanted to find an alternative option.

(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: 37years; thrusters; voyager; voyager1
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1 posted on 12/02/2017 4:37:19 PM PST by BenLurkin
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To: BenLurkin

Amazing. Between Voyager and the Mars Rovers, we built some great stuff.


2 posted on 12/02/2017 4:38:29 PM PST by Tijeras_Slim
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To: BenLurkin

Pretty amazing.

Send more Chuck Berry.

L


3 posted on 12/02/2017 4:39:08 PM PST by Lurker (President Trump isn't our last chance. President Trump is THEIR last chance.)
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To: BenLurkin

Is this the spacecraft with a diagram of the solar system, showing which planet it came from, and also have drawings of a nude man and woman as inhabitants of this planet?

If aliens come across this thousands of years from now, what will they think?


4 posted on 12/02/2017 4:39:30 PM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: Dilbert San Diego

They will wonder what we taste like and if we are fast food.

Apparently, we taste like a sweet meat and our obesity epidemic ensures we are not at all fast food.


5 posted on 12/02/2017 4:43:56 PM PST by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults)
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To: Dilbert San Diego
"If aliens come across this thousands of years from now, what will they think?"

That's the entire premise of the first Star Trek movie :)

6 posted on 12/02/2017 4:43:56 PM PST by Joe 6-pack (Qui me amat, amat et canem meum.)
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To: Dilbert San Diego
That was on the Pioneer probes. Voyager had a lot more including various images of Earth and audio recordings - most importantly Chuck Berry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contents_of_the_Voyager_Golden_Record

7 posted on 12/02/2017 4:44:30 PM PST by KarlInOhio (The Whig Party died when it fled the great fight of its century. Ditto for the Republicans now.)
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To: Dilbert San Diego

the aliens will think we are extremely primitive to have only two boring sexes when advanced alien life forms like obama have 57


8 posted on 12/02/2017 4:45:39 PM PST by faithhopecharity (“Politicians aren’t born, they’re excreted.” - Marcus Tillius Cicero (3 BCE))
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To: Jonty30
Apparently, we taste like a sweet meat and our obesity epidemic ensures we are not at all fast food.

'Aliens will eat the fatties first': Gym sparks outrage with new advertising campaign

9 posted on 12/02/2017 4:46:21 PM PST by KarlInOhio (The Whig Party died when it fled the great fight of its century. Ditto for the Republicans now.)
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To: Tijeras_Slim

Ditto.


10 posted on 12/02/2017 4:46:36 PM PST by sparklite2 (I hereby designate the ongoing kerfuffle Diddle-Gate.)
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To: BenLurkin

11 posted on 12/02/2017 4:47:41 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: Dilbert San Diego
If aliens come across this thousands of years from now, what will they think?

"Looks like meat is back on menu, boys!"

12 posted on 12/02/2017 4:48:14 PM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: Joe 6-pack

13 posted on 12/02/2017 4:49:21 PM PST by OttawaFreeper ("If I had to go to war again, I'd bring lacrosse players" Conn Smythe)
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To: BenLurkin

Beaming with pride! My Dad ran the program at GE that built the RTGs that power Voyager 1 & 2. I still remember watching the videos he had of them smashing the transportation casks loaded on rail cars into a solid concrete barrier to prove that they casks wouldn’t split open in the event the rocket crashed on lift off.

The spacecraft are still called Mariner Jupiter-Saturn in our family!

Thanks for posting.


14 posted on 12/02/2017 4:52:30 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: BenLurkin
No discussion of Voyager is complete
without pictures

.


15 posted on 12/02/2017 4:55:21 PM PST by mountn man (The Pleasure You Get From Life, Is Equal To The Attitude You Put Into It)
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To: mountn man

Those dual main thrusters are impressively engineered.


16 posted on 12/02/2017 4:56:59 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: Tijeras_Slim

There were much better computer programmers when that thing was designed.


17 posted on 12/02/2017 4:57:54 PM PST by Dalberg-Acton
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To: RegulatorCountry

LOL

Good one.


18 posted on 12/02/2017 4:58:56 PM PST by mountn man (The Pleasure You Get From Life, Is Equal To The Attitude You Put Into It)
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To: mountn man

She bears a lot of responsibility for Obama becoming a Senator.


19 posted on 12/02/2017 4:59:34 PM PST by Dalberg-Acton
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To: BenLurkin
Voyager 1's radio signal in 2013, picked up and translated to image by Earth-bound radio telescopes:


20 posted on 12/02/2017 5:00:03 PM PST by Ciaphas Cain (I don't give a damn about your feelings. Try to impress me with your convictions.)
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