fivemack: (Default)
Tom Womack ([personal profile] fivemack) wrote2008-05-30 03:41 pm

Recent terminology change

When did they start calling deployed photoelectric power sources on spacecraft 'solar wings' rather than 'solar panels'?

I suppose they are very occasionally actually used as wings, but the only example I can think of it aerobraking into orbit around Mars.

[identity profile] pavanne.livejournal.com 2008-05-31 09:18 pm (UTC)(link)
I dunno. They never told me. But then part of my job is to make vigorous fun of stupid terminology relating to solar power, of which there is much. This would appear to be one such example.

My boss may disagree on that penultimate sentence.