In below picture you see one of the first wheels for a large batch (tens of devices) of reaction wheels in the last stages of assembly.

Question: what to do if motors and bearings don’t like vacuum? One route is to use special vacuum proof equipment another is to use a pressure vessel for the RWA and run it in air. Pioneered by Prof. Udo Renner and based on the 30+ years experiences gained at the #TUBSAT group of Technische Universität Berlin we, too follow the latter approach. To make sure everything is air tight we use ample amount of glue to create a seal that is proven to last for more than a decade.

Bonus: in case you wonder why the wheel looks somewhat nibbled at, that is one of the marks of the balancing machine.

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