Solar Array Problems....

This week the ISS team has had some problems folding up one of the ISS solar arrays. The array they need to fold up has been on orbit since November of 2000 and has been in a temporary location. Now that we're bringing new arrays up the P6 truss which holds the two temporary arrays has to be prepared to be moved. Both Solar Array Wings (SAWs) will need to be retracted before the whole P6 is relocated in September of next year.

This is what the ISS looked like in November of 2000. The P6 Truss is the piece sticking up from main body of the station and has the two huge SAWs on it.


Here's a pic taken this past September (pic was taken from the Shuttle when she was down under the ISS looking up) just after the S4 truss was installed. You can see the older P6 SAWs going left-right in this picture and the new S4 SAWs going up-down in this picture. The S4 arrays are in their final location and they need to be able to rotate to track the sun better, however, the port P6 array is obviously in the way! That's why we're trying to retract it.



These close up pictures show where the problems have been. The solar array just doesn't want to fold up the right way. The problem has been compared to trying to fold a road map in the car! They were successfull in getting the array a little over 1/2 way retracted so we can now rotate the S4 arrays but we still need to get it in the whole way.