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Testing the deployment of Dawn's solar panels

Testing the deployment of Dawn's solar panels
Testing the deployment of Dawn's solar panels At the Astrotech Space Operations facility at Kennedy Space Center on May 23, 2007, workers test the deployment of one of Dawn's two 10-meter solar arrays. The solar arrays need to be large to power Dawn's electrically powered ion propulsion system, and also because the spacecraft will be traveling beyond Mars to the asteroid belt, where solar energy is much weaker than it is at Earth. NASA / George Shelton