🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <26JAN199316452669@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov> baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes:
>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.
>|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     |
>

Have people thought about combining hammering with the orbit insertion?
I think hammering when whole spacecraft is vibrating due to motor
firing would shake loose about anything :-) .. Or is it impossible
due to some minor technical detail? 

- Jarnis <jarnis@mits.mdata.fi>