Help Me with a Bit of NASA Hardware

[Albertese]

I'm planing on building a model of the space shuttle and I want to hyper-detail the thing. I've been studying hundreds of images of all the shuttles picking out interesting details it would be fun to include.

One of the bits of kit on the real vehicles that isn't represented in the kit I bought is the Ku-band TV antenna. It's frequently seen deployed out of the forward end of the payload bay.on the shuttle's right side. I have managed to Google Image search up a few good pictures of this thing, but I can't quite wrap my head around it's shape.

Now, you'd think this was simple, it's just a dish on an arm. But the actual shapes and details of it seem weird to me. How it all hinges and deploys and how exactly it attaches to the shuttle itself are unclear to me.

So, can anyone point me to someplace where I might be able to get some better images of this thing, maybe an engineering diagram of it or something that might help explain what I'm looking at?

Thanks in advance!

--Alex

 

[Mysterion]

http://desktopsimmer.blogspot.com/2012/10/ku-band-antenna.html

That of any use?

 

[Albertese]

That is of some use. I was hoping for something more of a blueprint. But this is pretty good compared to the photos I have so far. Thanks!

--Alex

 

[Metryq]

Found one resource that is mostly about the flight deck controls, but does include some diagrams:

http://spaceshuttleguide.com
http://www.spaceshuttleguide.com/system/communications.htm#Ku-Band

Another archive, itself archived:
http://web.archive.org/web/20120101000000*/http://www.columbiassacrifice.com/&0_shttlovrvw.htm

And more general information, not specifically about the Ku antenna:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020806164507/http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/sodb/

Be sure to scan up and down the "captures" of the Web.Archive site, as some pages show different information.