Spacecraft Assembly

Integration Process

January 7, 2008

The new year has started with a flurry of activity. The CRaTER instrument was delivered to Goddard Space Flight Center on January 6th. Next week, we will uncrate the instrument and run it through its post-ship functional testing. The flight harness completed bake-out today. The propulsion module completed its environmental testing today. The spacecraft bus and the avionics panel are in the LRO clean room, and the mechanical team has started installation of electronics on the panel.

LRO team members prepare the Avionics Module flight wiring harness for bake-out. The harness was placed in a vacuum chamber and heated in order to drive off remaining volatiles before installation on the spacecraft. The bake-out ensures that the harness will not contaminate the instruments when the entire spacecraft operates in vacuum. The vacuum chamber is shown in the background. Pictured from left to right are: Trick, Larry Gibb, Doug Duvall, Phil Luers, Curtis Dunsmore

Charles Baker, the LRO thermal lead, inspects the flight radiator panel. This panel will be mounted to the zenith face of the spacecraft. Heat is conducted from the avionics to this panel, and this panel dumps the heat to space. The radiator panel is covered in Optical Surface Reflectors (OSR) that enable the panel to continue to run cold even in direct sunlight.

January 21, 2008

LRO's modular spacecraft design is really paying off right now. While the electrical team connects the Power System Electronics (PSE), the Command and Data Handling (C&DH) system, and the Propulsion and Deployment Electronics (PDE) to the flight harness, the propulsion team is putting the finishing touches on the propulsion module, the mechanical team is installing the reaction wheels on the -z panel, and the facilities team is baking out the Instrument Module. The PSE and C&DH each attach to all of the other electronics in the Orbiter, and we must check out every signal on every connector, so the integration took a few days. We are currently working on the PDE electrical integration. We had our first official power-up of the spacecraft last week, successfully sending commands and receiving telemetry. The Gimbal Control Electronics are mounted to the panel, but not yet connected. Also last week, CRaTER completed its post-ship functional.

The reaction wheels are mounted on the -z panel. The black heat pipes come together between the wheels and carry heat out through the hole in the -z panel to the radiator panel. By changing the speed of the wheels, the attitude control system can rotate the Orbiter and precisely point the instruments. Note the extra printing on the cover of the wheel on the top left.

Al Lacks (left), Gordon Casto (center back), and Giulio Rosanova prepare to move the instrument module to the vacuum chamber (behind Gordon). The flight heaters, thermostats, and temperature sensors are already installed on the panel. Aluminum tape covers the heaters and spreads the heat out. Vacuum bake-out of the instrument module last week removed volatile contaminates, ensuring that we don't fog over the instruments when we install them..

We hope this small memorial, which will end up on the surface of the moon after LRO's mission ends, provides some comfort to Joe's family.

Kevin Blahut and Rex Richardson (wearing headset) perform safe-to-mate checks of the flight harness during integration of the PDE.

Al Lacks (left) and Carroll "Trick" Trickey perform the incoming inspection of the CRaTER instrument.