SDO Solar Array and High Gain Antenna Test Deploy
Goddard engineers attached the solar array panels and high gain antennas to the Solar Dynamics Observatory. During launch the arrays and antennas are tucked in against the spacecraft and must be opened up for use on orbit. This video show the engineers testing that deployment. The arrays and antennas are held against the spacecraft by explosive bolts that are exploded to allow them to open. The same type of explosives will deploy the solar arrays in space. The solar arrays will collect energy from the Sun to power the spacecraft. SDO will collect so much data on the sun that it could not be stored on the spacecraft and therefore must be sent to the ground quickly. The high gain antennas will transmit 1.5 terabytes of data each day to a ground station at White Sands, NM. That's like watching 380 movies each day!
On March 31, 2008, the Solar Dynamics Observatory's Solar Arrays and High Gain Antenna were deployed successfully during their first planned test.
For complete transcription of this video, please click here.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
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Producer
- Rani Gran (NASA/GSFC)
Release date
This page was originally published on Thursday, April 3, 2008.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:55 PM EDT.
Missions
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[SDO]
ID: 168This dataset can be found at: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/
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