AO-10 Status

["Stacey E. Mills, M.D." <w4sm@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Solar illumination on AO-10 appears to be way down and the 
satellite is nearly "comatose."  I can hear the beacon with
FM'ing and hear my downlink with some FM'ing as well, but the
signals are very, very weak.  

This is in keeping with my best guess regarding attitude, which
shows less than 50% illumination at the moment. Given the aging 
solar panels, that's probably enough to cause significant
performance degradation.

Things will probably continue to get worse for the next month and 
may not be any better by the time of field day.  However, they 
should improve again later in the summer and peak in August.

If this cycle produces a complete "loss of signal" I may be able to
more closely estimate the ALAT/ALON and improve the predictions.

-- 
  ________________________________________________
 | Stacey E. Mills, M.D.                          | 
 | E-Mail: sem2r@virginia.edu or: w4sm@cstone.net |
 | Office Phone: 804-982-4406  Fax: 804-924-8767  |
 |________________________________________________|