[amsat-bb] AO-51 current status

[Andrew Glasbrenner]

Sometime between 1815 and 1945Z today, AO-51's IHU crashed. This 
happened after a few days of intermittent and unpredictable operation. 
Mark N8MH and I reset the satellite and started the repeater back up 
around ~2030Z, and lowered the output power to about 300 milliwatts. 
Battery voltage was low, around 4.9v, with cell 1 less than 1 volt. This 
is very troublesome, as the impending third cell failure will likely end 
our continuing operations, particularly if it fails shorted as the 
others have. We've also observed the transmitters cutting off around 4.7 
to 4.6 volts prior to the last reset, in eclipse.

We'll do what we can, but her days are short. Let me ask once again for 
more reports, especially from the US operators, to the oscar.dcarr.org 
webpage. The command stations monitor this for changes in the operation 
of AO-51, and while worldwide participation is good, few US operators 
post to it.

Please support the several satellite programs worldwide, such as 
AMSAT-Fox, AMSAT-UK FunCube and UKCube, AMSAT-ZL Kiwisat, AMSAT-DL P3E, 
and others.

73, Drew KO4MA
AMSAT-NA VP Operations