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During the parabolic flights, the antenna will be tested to see if it unrolls properly during weightlessness. "During the tests in the lab in Delft, the antenna became twisted once, which can result in the solar panels and other delicate parts of the satellite being damaged," says Joost Elstak, whose graduation project was based on the tests of the antennae. "We believe that this was caused by the gravity. During ESA''s parabolic flights, we want to determine if the antenna will properly unroll during weightlessness." The tests went extremely well. "Today we primarily wanted to test if the experimental structure we made for this would work properly, and it did."
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