Monthly Archives: April 2014

The Week of April 7

In the last week we saw some further new use of the Strip And Wash (SAW) Room. The mirror team was able to install the wash pan into the mirror bracket allowing them to install a mirror either face up or face down. This allows them to use a hot brine bath for the mirrors to further clean the mirror. The current procedures now involve installing a mirror face down; a soak in the brine bath; remove the mirror and bath; install the mirror face up; a rinse; a ZrO scrub; a final rinse; sheet dry; hot air drying of all other parts. We are well on our way to doing acid stripping of the coating once we have the acid vapor removal in place.

At the end of the last week the tracker team was able to get the system to track and slew upon request. The problem seems to have been an intermittently bad connection to the encoder.

With the encoder problem solved the team will now use the laser tracker to map out the position of the tracker through all positions, X and Y. Once that is done they will install the hexapod assembly and begin testing those, first independently and then as part of a trajectories.