[amsat-bb] Re: Less than lightening Results

[Sebastian]

They say that no question is a dumb question, so here goes - since I  
haven't seen this discussed before, but maybe I missed it.

What makes AO-7 so special?  Why is it that we lost AO-10, AO-13 and  
all the others in the past several years, yet this one is still  
working?  I know the batteries are dead, but I'm primarily interested  
in how this bird is able to stay in it's orbit for over 30 years?  And  
if it's orbit is decaying, how is it that it has apparently decayed so  
slowly?

I was under the impression that unless a satellite is occasionally  
'boosted', it will eventually re-enter?  I somehow doubt AO-7 has any  
fuel left in it's boosters; if it had any.

73 de W4AS
Sebastian

On Apr 9, 2009, at 11:01 PM, Greg D. wrote:

>
> Yeah, this is one grand old bird (the satellite, I mean).  If you  
> look at the planetary statistics, the median age of the human  
> population is about 26.8 as of 2000, and growing slowly.  That makes  
> AO-07, at age 35, significantly older than more than half of the  
> people on Earth.
>
> Greg  KO6TH  (one of the few older than AO-07...)