Maneuvering thrusters
Maneuvering thrusters (or just thrusters) is are a series of devices located on the hull of a starship which control its attitude and are used for low speed maneuvers. A thruster system relies on Newton's Third Law which states that "every action must have an equal and opposite reaction."
Positively and negatively charged particles are separated. Using a set of magnetic fields, these particles are accelerated to the direction, opposite to the direction the starship or other body is trying to reach. Due to the impulse of these particles as they're expelled, a force acts on the body in the opposite direction, equal to the force with which the particles are expelled. As a result, the body is accelerated in this direction.
Charged particles are a side-effect of many quantum level reactions, such as matter-antimatter reactions. As a result, charged particles that can be used for the thruster systems can be found as a warp core by-product.
Shipboard Thrusters
Starships have primary and auxiliary thrusters. The primary thrusters are powered by a gas-fusion reaction chamber. It uses deuterium fuel from fuel tanks that in turn are fed from the ship's main deuterium tank. Exhaust is delivered through a field trap into the vectored thrust nozzles visible from the outside. Auxiliary thrusters have no tanks or fieldtraps, and are powered by a microfusion chamber. The generated thrust is considerably lower.
Shuttlecraft, escape pods, cargo management units and some probes also use microfusion thrusters. Microtorpedoes in turn use a miniature fusion thruster for propulsion.
