Paihau—Robinson Space Blog

Yesterday, members of the Hēki team completed a brief inspection and functional checkout of Hēki at Voyager Technologies in Houston, Texas.

We had several goals during this activity. The first was to visually inspect Hēki’s case to look for any signs of wear or damage from its time in space – for example, any small scratches or pockmarks from space debris. We were pleased to see that Hēki looked pristine.

Left: inspecting Hēki before it is removed from the foam “clamshell” that protected it during launch and return to Earth. Right: Hēki’s pristine radiator surface, with protective cover removed (as it was in space)

The second objective was to see if Hēki remained functional after its journey back to Earth and before it is shipped back to Aotearoa New Zealand. All of Hēki’s systems operated as expected during the test.

We look forward to returning Hēki to our laboratory in Wellington for more comprehensive assessment, which will include repeating many of the activities previously completed in space to look for changes in behaviour.  Today we completed final packing for Hēki’s journey home!

Header image: engineer commanding Hēki and reviewing telemetry as part of the post-landing checkout test.