SALT/PFIS Photographs

PFIS Assembly: Dolly

19 April 2004:

Left: The lifting feet have been added. These bring the dolly up off of its rollers for stability during testing.

Right: The new crane (not at its full height).

13 February 2004

We have completed the assembly of the dolly. It went together fairly easily, except for the maneuvering of the pieces with the crane. To the left is Tommy Nelson and Mike with the assembled dolly. At right is a closeup of the tilting bearing and one of the bolts connecting the triangle to the ring.

For now, we have it stabilized in its horizontal position with a simple piece of channel bolted to the dolly structure (left). At right is a closeup of one of the pads to which the PFIS structure will be bolted. These were machined to high tolerance to provide a flat plane.

10 February 2004

The first step in the assembly of PFIS is the construction of the dolly. PFIS will be mounted to the dolly for the rest of the assembly, alignment and testing. The dolly is constructed from three main pieces: a ring, to which the PFIS structure is bolted; a triangle, which the ring bolts to; and a square, which is the base of the dolly at floor level. The dolly will allow us to tilt PFIS at +/-37 degrees from horizontal, so that we can test the various mechanisms at these angles as well as attempt to get a measurement of the flexure.

Below are some pictures of us bringing the dolly pieces into Space Astronomy Laboratory. There were some clearance issues down in the Physics loading dock, and we had to lift the ring to a vertical position to get it into the freight elevator, but with Scott's help we managed to get it in.

Getting it out of the loading area:

The triangle and square pieces managed to fit in the freight elevator while still on the pallet.

Lifting the ring and getting it into the freight elevator: