WEEKLY HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK ENDING 3 October 1997:
STANFORD HIGHLIGHT
Speedring has completed the manufacturing of the primary
flight quartz
block, QB#3. All manufacturing operations
and all process flow measurements
have been successfully
completed. A final verification to print under the
supervision of a program quality assurance representative
will be performed
in early October.
SPACE VEHICLE HIGHLIGHT
All
eighteen flight Helium thrusters have completed mechanical
assembly
and initial functional testing. The next thruster
operations are
building flight electrical harnesses onto the
thrusters and acceptance
and characterization testing. The
automated characterization test setup
has been successful run
through a complete back pressure and temperature
cycle with
the engineering unit thruster in the thermal vacuum system
in
building 251. This system, which will save many person
months of labor,
autonomously collects massflow versus current
data over the expected
flight range of back pressures and
temperatures.