This Week's Sponsor
ATK's Phoenix Empowerment
Alliant Techsystems' (NYSE: ATK) Ultraflex Solar Arrays deployed successfully and now provide power to NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander. This is the first flight for this unique solar array technology developed by ATK's Goleta, California facility. Each Ultraflex array unfolded like an oriental fan into a circular shape 2.1 meters in diameter. They will generate 770 watts of power from sunlight at the distance Earth is from the sun. As Mars is approximately 1.5 times farther from the sun, the solar arrays will produce less than half the power possible on Earth. Launched in August 2007, the Phoenix Mars Mission is the first in NASA's Scout Program. Phoenix is designed to study the history of water and habitability potential in the Martian arctic's ice-rich soil.
Also on board the Phoenix Lander is a CoilABLE boom which will deploy the Surface Stereo Imager camera. At release, strain energy stored in the stowed, coiled boom structure lifts the camera payload, weighing 4.5 times the weight of the boom, to a height about 27 inches above the lander deck. The deployed structure is a straight, three-sided truss capable of supporting the camera. This boom design shares heritage with the boom which deployed a similar camera on the Mars Pathfinder lander in 1997. In addition, ATK produced both a Dual Bore Heat Pipe Assembly and a diaphragm tank to support the Phoenix Mars Lander Program. The Dual Bore Heat Pipe contained complex mechanical bending configurations and efficient heat transport and conductance capability that supported the heat removal from the Cruise Stage electronics to the Cruise Stage radiator.—Minneapolis, Minnesota
