Tracker Status

October 22, 2004

 

Tray Assembly

-        Plyform is continuing with fabrication of bare tray panels.  About 60 have been fabricated to date.

-        Thermal-vacuum testing of the first 3 flight tray panels was completely successful.  One of the panels had tiles etched and primed at GSFC and was tested beyond the acceptance level of 60C, up to 70C, with no problems found.  10 more are in testing now.

-        Plyform has delivered 12 100% complete tray panels (with tungsten and Kapton).  8 more will arrive next Wednesday, and 10 more the following Wednesday.

-        A decision was made for GSFC to complete the remaining etching and priming of tungsten tiles.

-        More work was needed at G&A to complete the process revisions needed to ensure clearance between MCM connectors and sidewalls.   We expect them to start processing the first Tower-A trays on Monday.

 

MCMs

-        All Tower-A MCMs are in Italy, including 5 tall MCMs delivered this week.

-        All remaining MCMs from earlier shipments were returned to SLAC to undergo the new conformal-coating inspections and rework and the new pitch-adapter inspections.

-        Otherwise not much progress was made at SLAC on the rework and production restart because of the laboratory work stoppage.

 

Flex Circuit Cables

-        A second vendor was found that claims to be able to make the full-length cables.  SLAC is investigating.

-        All cables delivered by Parlex to date are non-flight, due to the problems with plating the vias.  They will be used for EGSE.  The first flight set is to be delivered Nov 4, but efforts are in progress to move that a few days earlier to support the Tower A assembly schedule.

-        Last Friday’s MRB concluded that the termination resistors need to be changed from 100 ohms to 75 ohms, so work is in progress obtaining the parts and materials and planning how to do the rework and production change.  Tower-A can be excluded from this change, as the Tower-A MCMs have been screened to have high timing margins.