A feasibility study was conducted on large folding booms for spacecraft applications. The resulting design featured precise repeatability, permitted the passing of a large electrical cable directly through each knuckle, and used a constant-speed spring-driven motor to operate the knuckles by means of a cable. The entire assembly, including the spring motor, is completely nonmagnetic and is ideally suited for placing a magnetometer experiment a considerable distance from the spacecraft structure. It can also place many other instruments, such as antennas and solar-celled paddle systems, away from the structure.
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