The LRO team has been busy finishing all the details. We are checking out every heater and temperature sensor connection, shielding cables, tying harnesses down for flight, and installing blankets. We have run through tests of all of the electronics on the spacecraft, but we plan to do one more run for the record before we start environmental testing. The flight operations team executed several simulations over the last few weeks.

The Solar Array System was assembled as a stand-alone subsystem two weeks ago. We successfully executed a full deployment on the test stand on May 20th (the same day the flight operations team simulated a deployment). We integrated the interface panel and solar array gimbal on the Orbiter and ran the gimbal through its paces. We also hooked the array up with extension cables and verified that light on the array properly sends current into the Orbiter.

The High-Gain Antenna System completed its thermal vacuum testing, and we are getting ready for installation on the Orbiter.

We found a serious problem with our sun sensor input circuit. During integration of the coarse sun sensors, the engineers discovered that the input resistance in our flight computer system was too high, so we have removed the box from the Orbiter. We have already made the resistor change and will re-integrate the box on the Orbiter after vibrating it to verify that is was reassembled properly.

Here's the avionics panel almost ready for final close-out. On the right, a technician measures the position and alignment of our instruments.

Craig Tooley, the LRO project manager, describes the LRO mission to actor George Takei who played Mr. Sulu on the television show Star Trek. In the background, the LRO mechanical team prepares for some work on the Orbiter and the harness team takes a break..