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Much of the work on the MESSENGER spacecraft
over the past two weeks has involved the testing and tweaking
of electronic subsystems rather than the addition of new hardware
to the spacecraft. The angle seen here provides a great view of
a critical component - a Solar Array Drive Actuator (SADA) - that
will be difficult to see later in the assembly process. Each of
MESSENGER's two solar panels will be mounted to a SADA on opposite
sides of the spacecraft. Each solar array can be rotated around
one axis by its SADA, thus allowing MESSENGER to better track
the Sun when far away to maintain power, and to rotate the arrays
away from the Sun to keep them cool.
Last updated: July 10,
2003
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