[amsat-bb] XW-2C status

[Paul Stoetzer]

The XW-2 satellites are currently experiencing what I believe are
their longest period of eclipses since, eclipsing in the southern
hemisphere on each orbit. With LTDNs (local time of the descending
node) of 06:00-06:02, the satellites are in sunlight most of the time,
except in each hemisphere's winter. Note that XW-2A is no longer in a
nominally sun-synchronous orbit due to it's orbital maneuvers.

DK3WN's Illum program shows that XW-2C will be experience periods of
eclipse until August 12th. Eclipse durations are 21-22 minutes per
orbit at this time and will start to decrease slowly next week (as
seen here https://twitter.com/PRStoetzer/status/751208970979803137 )

Hopefully the issues are temporary. Perhaps a command station can put
it into a safe mode to ensure that it's batteries do not get too
depleted while experiencing long eclipses.

73,

Paul, N8HM

On Thu, Jul 7, 2016 at 8:04 PM, Glenn Miller - AA5PK
<aa5pk at suddenlink.net> wrote:
> It appears XW-2C is experiencing "issues."
> The CW beacon, the transponder and the telemetry are very erratic.  The
> transponder is on very briefly during breaks in the telemetry transmissions.
> The CW beacon hardly gets a single dit out.
> May have battery problems.
>
> Glenn / AA5PK
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