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Any considered one of Voyager’s three units of thrusters can be utilized to maintain the probe aligned now that it’s on a set path into interstellar house, permitting NASA to swap between them as wanted. They needed to change on account of clogging for the primary time in 2002, then once more in 2018. The probe is now again to utilizing its authentic set of thrusters, that are clogged however not as severely as the opposite units.
Nonetheless, NASA is coping with different complicated components along with the thrusters because the probe ages. To preserve the probe’s dwindling energy, which comes from decaying plutonium, non-essential tools was disabled, together with heating parts for the thrusters. The group fearful that turning the thrusters on with out warming them up might destroy them, making the thruster heaters all of the sudden important once more.
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