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- Path: sparky!uunet!portal!lll-winken!uwm.edu!rpi!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke
- From: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke)
- Newsgroups: sci.space
- Subject: Re: Galileo update?
- Message-ID: <26JAN199316452669@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov>
- Date: 26 Jan 93 17:41:08 GMT
- References: <93025.205009IO20721@MAINE.MAINE.EDU>
- Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- Lines: 22
- NNTP-Posting-Host: kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov
- News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41
-
- In article <93025.205009IO20721@MAINE.MAINE.EDU>, Michael Petersen <IO20721@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> writes...
- >Could someone tell me if NASA has successfully deployed the high-gain
- >antenna on Galileo yet? I heard that their most "aggressive" attempts
- >would occur after the the last Earth flyby.
-
- The recent hammerings have not opened the antenna. The first hammering
- attempt turned the ballscrew an additional full rotation, but it has
- not budged since. Despite 13,000+ hammerings at different frequencies
- and at various antenna temperatures, the ribs are still stuck. One last
- attempt will be made by spinning up the spacecraft from 3 rpm to 10 rpm
- in March, but this is not expected to do much. March has been designated
- as the deadline to open the antenna. After that the focus will be
- on the Ida flyby in August and a low gain antenna mission. One other
- event that may open the antenna is the Jupiter orbit insertion in December
- 1995. The solid rotor motor will fire for an hour and the resulting
- vibrations may jar the antenna loose, but this is to be considered a long shot.
- ___ _____ ___
- /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| Ron Baalke | baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov
- | | | | __ \ /| | | | Jet Propulsion Lab |
- ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |__ M/S 525-3684 Telos | Every once in a while,
- /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | try pushing your luck.
- |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ |
-