6
$\begingroup$

A photo of the Parker Solar Probe was captioned as follows:

In the Astrotech processing facility in Titusville, Florida, near NASA's Kennedy Space Center, on Tuesday, June 5, 2018, technicians and engineers perform light bar testing on NASA's Parker Solar Probe.

I wasn't able to find any references to this sort of process in NASA literature - even Armadillo's Ben Brockert was perplexed.

Is this something specific to the Parker probe, or a standard NDT process?

Improve this question
$\endgroup$

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
10
$\begingroup$

This test was performed to ensure that the 44 series of solar cells (or "strings") were still connected. After the acoustic and vibration testing, there was a chance that some of the electrical connections could have been broken, so the test used a bar of purple lasers (a "light bar") to verify that the strings were still functioning properly. A laser bar was used because it could test a single string at a time. Purple lasers happened to be on hand, and the solar cells function efficiently at that wavelength. Infrared lasers were also used.

This test is usually referred to as an illumination test, which is why it was not readily identifiable.

Source:

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
2
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Nice! I've never even heard of a purple laser. $\endgroup$
    – Organic Marble
    Jan 30, 2019 at 22:27
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ I would have used a bunch of purple lensed LEDs taped to a stick and just held it a few cm away, but then again I don't work for NASA. Sharks with lasers! $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Jan 31, 2019 at 0:57

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.