Thanks.
Flight day five will see the final rendezvous maneuvers with the slowly spinning Palapa satellite. After Hauck and
Walker have maneuvered the Discovery to within 35 feet of the Palapa satellite, Allen and Gardner will leave the
orbiter airlock, Allen will don one of the Manned Maneuvering Units and will fly over to the Palapa satellite. Once
stabilized at the bottom end of the errant satellite, Allen will insert a specially constructed Apogee Kick Motor Capture
Device (ACD) into the spent apogee kick motor casing, which is inside the aft skirt of the Palapa. The six-foot long
ACD will lock into place and special brake pads will allow Allen to use his MMU jets to stop the rotation of the
satellite.
more-
Next, mission specialist Anna Fisher will use the RMS to capture a grapple fixture which is mounted to the ACD
between Allen and the satellite. She will then maneuver the satellite into the cargo bay where Gardner will be stationed
near a special support pallet. Gardner will then be able to remove the satellite’s omni-directional antenna and attach a
separate bridge structure (A-frame) to the top end of the satellite, so the RMS can release the lower fixture and grasp
the top one, allowing the satellite to be lowered into the cradle and latched into place vertically for the return to Earth.
After the arm has grasped the upper grapple, Allen will be free to undock from the satellite and reberth his MMU. Once
Palapa is in its special pallet, the astronauts can remove the bridge structure from the top of the satellite so that the
cargo bay doors can be closed shortly before return to Earth.
Lots of stuff to build and get to work.
So the Omni antenna needs to be able to dettach.
I think in the original STS Sat's the antenna was attached. But I think it is the whole top and antenna that gets taken off