Detailed Description
From an email dated August 18, 2009 from the AggieSat2 team:
Your information regarding the AggieSat2 satellite needs to be updated. You
can find additional information about satellite information at aggiesat.org.
Also, the satellite can not be considered operational as ground crews were
able to request health data from the satellite.
Today at 1:11:59 p.m. CDT we received eight poll health responses including
battery and temperature data from AggieSat2 during a 79 degree pass over
College Station. The satellite, as expected, went temporarily into fast
beacon mode (1/5 Hz). We synchronized the spacecraft clock but lost COMMs
before we could send it the next exact communications window and get the
cumulative health data since launch. Since the next window was not set, the
spacecraft will re-enter its standby mode and patiently await our next
opportunity to talk to it.
While the duration of usable COMMs is still short (under a minute) this is
the first recorded instance of two way data communications between Earth and
AggieSat2. This is a significant improvement over the individual beacons we
had been receiving at first. The data recorded today gives local battery
data and subsystem temperatures.
We will try to capitalize on this development in the near future and hope
that it remains consistent or improved from here on out.
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