Engineers assess reaction wheel on NASA's Dawn spacecraft
Thursday, July 1, 2010 - 15:35
in Astronomy & Space
Engineers are studying the reaction wheels on NASA's Dawn spacecraft after automatic sensors detected excess friction building up in one of them and powered it off early on the morning of June 17, 2010. Reaction wheels spin to help a spacecraft maintain attitude control, and Dawn, which is exploring the asteroid belt, uses three wheels in normal operations.