[amsat-bb] Re: ARISSat-1

[James McBride]

Hi all,
I found this morning in VK6 (approx. 03:45 UTC) the MET counter said 
21min 45 sec, which is approx. the time ARISSat-1 would have come back 
into Sunlight. Strange thing is it was on High Power - got plenty of 
telemetry frames but was discharging at a great rate of knots.. Looking 
at the data it would seem there was more discharging than charging going 
on over it's first 21 minutes. 1 panel said 45v, the others were around 
15v so the part that was facing direct sunlight was good. I will get 
another chance perhaps in a few hours to see if it's still alive when 
not in sunlight and will try to grab some more telemetry.

I have a jpg screenshot of telemetry with the position info from earlier 
if anyone would like it.

73
James VK6FJA


On 27/08/2011 7:33 PM, Pete MI0VAX wrote:
> Hi Carl,
>
> I've seen this recently myself too.. On the occasions when it happened here
> over the UK, the bird "should" have been in high power mode, but after
> looking at telemetry it appears that it had switched into low power mode
> much earlier that than usual, from memory the footprint was only half in
> eclipse. Also noticed that before it cuts off that there is usually 10-15 or
> so seconds of a silent carrier. On another occasion it cut out halfway
> through a SSTV transmission - this I'm almost certain shouldn't have
> happened due to the way the firmware was written.
>
> Perhaps a bad solar panel contributing to low voltage when approaching
> eclipse? I had noticed one of the panel temps was over 75c on several
> passes.
>
> It certainly looks like there is some intermittent problems beginning to
> raise their head, lets hope it's not a steady decline in the bird's
> performance as gathering the SSTV pics, telemetry etc has been a very
> enjoyable change to the usual FM/SSB activity.
>
> 73 de Pete
>
> Mi0VAX
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 3:59 AM, Carl Rimmer<cfrimmer at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> I was having a really good pass gpong from  my NW-SE and I had copied 6
>> frames of Telemetry and 5 frames of KURSK data when the bird just went
>> silent.  It never came back during this pass.  It was the 08-27-2011 0241
>> UTC pass over Lake Erie.  I am curious if anyone has heard it since than.
>>   That is probably the best I have copied it since day one.  The frames
> where
>> forwarded.  The MET was 55' 33".  Bat Voltage = 35.668; Bat Current = -16
>> ma.  I've never heard it just go silent like that and not come back up.
>>
>> Carl W8KRF
>> _______________________________________________
>> Sent via AMSAT-BB at amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
>> Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program!
>> Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Sent via AMSAT-BB at amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
> Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program!
> Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb