A deceptively valuable wall hanging: this section of the NASA–ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s solar array flew for eight years in space before being returned to Earth aboard a Space Shuttle, and is now displayed at ESA’s technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.
See it for yourself at ESA’s Open Day in the Netherlands on Sunday 8 October. The theme this year is Bringing Space to Earth, focussing on knowledge, hardware and people returned to the ground from space. You can sign up to join for the Open Day here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/esa-estec-open-day-2017-tickets-35455421119
ESA provided the first two generations of solar wings for Hubble, replaced and returned during later servicing missions. Today, Hubble is powered by US-made solar wings, but they are kept trained on the Sun by the original European drive mechanisms.
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/08/Section_of_Hubble_solar_wing
