Mars Odyssey GRS Boom
An Astro Aerospace 6.2-meter AstroMast® successfully deployed the Mars Odyssey gamma ray spectrometer (GRS) boom at noon on June 4, 2002. The Mars Odyssey mission will be measuring the amount of hydrogen, as well as many other important elements such as iron, aluminum, potassium, chlorine, thorium, uranium and others.
Roger Gibbs, Odyssey project manager at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, called to congratulate Astro for the successful deployment of the AstroMast Boom. Mr. Gibbs' comments follow:
- The high force thermal latch release took about 3 1/2 minutes versus 8 minutes predicted.
- Deployment of the boom took 7 1/2 minutes - much faster (both of these because we believe the boom was warmer than predicted).
- The dynamic response of the boom is very close to predicted and everything looks good.
- The JPL program team is very happy that everything worked exactly as defined.
Mars Odyssey GRS Boom Animation