Ferchi

Trouble with the starboard Solar Alpha Rotary Joint, or SARJ, has proven especially troubling for station engineers. The lab complex is equipped with two massive SARJs, one on each side of the station's main solar power truss, that use 10-foot-wide motor-driven gears to turn outboard solar arrays like giant paddle wheels to track the sun. Last fall, engineers discovered extensive internal metallic contamination in the right-side SARJ indicative of a major problem of some sort. To minimize additional damage, flight controllers no longer run that starboard SARJ in "auto-track" mode, although it is occasionally repositioned to improve power generation.