C
cazuke
Guest
Hi guys<br /><br />I read today that they fixed some sort of motor/joint for the ISS solar panels. That reminded me about something I've noticed a few times. Often you'll see pictures for the ISS where the solar panels are not all facing the same direction. (OK one thingimajing was broken it seems, but still there were more panels not pointing in the same direction).<br /><br />So I was wondering why this is happening. I thought they should all track the sun which mean they must always face the same direction. <br /><br />This makes me wonder about something else as well. If you need to rotate the panels to follow the sun, it means that the ISS is not standing still relative to the sun. That's very strange to me. Won't that be 'normal'. E.g. If some part of the station is pointing to the earth, then surely after half a rotation it will point to the sun. I get the impression that this is not happening. Which sounds to me that they must continuously use some rockets or something to keep it pointing in the right direction... Is that correct? Sounds like A LOT of fuel.<br /><br />I think I should add at least that my simple serviette logic assumes that the station is orbiting along the orbital plane of earth (ie. ISS, Earth and sun is always on the same plane). So I can see why in reality you still need to rotate panels even if the ISS is not pointing in the same direction relative to the earth.<br /><br />So in summary I have the following questions:<br />1. Why aren't all solar panels of the ISS always facing the same direction.<br />2. Is the ISS's attitude always the same relative towards the earth or to the sun?