Satellite solar array structures experience several loads during deployment and in orbit operations. Such loads cause vibrations and can lead to premature failure or improper service operation, hence, solar arrays must be designed to attenuate these vibrations. In addition, solar arrays must be as light weight as possible, which renders their design process as a fairly complicated one. An innovative approach is presented in this paper for improving the passive vibration damping of solar arrays by using adaptive boundary conditions. A case study of a solar array is investigated where experimental testing and finite element technique are efficiently integrated. In addition, a new theoretical technique is developed to predict first and second vibration modes of the solar array. The results are used to study the effects of boundary conditions on the vibration response of the solar array. They clearly show that by only changing the way the solar array is fixed, vibration damping is successfully improved.