[amsat-bb] AO-10 "napping"

[w4sm@xxxxxxxxxx (Stacey Mills)]

AO-10 appears to be entering another sleep period due to poor solar angle.
This evening, the beacon is quite weak and FM'ing.  I can barely detect a
CW uplink signal which also exhibits FM'ing.

If the past is any indication, and it may not be if AO-10 is attitudinally
unstable, this sleep will last about 4-6 weeks before gradually improving
over another 4-6 weeks.  We'll see what happens.  The signals are currently
too weak for ranging data.  NORAD appears to have re-acquired AO-10, though
I'm a bit skeptical of their reported keps, particularly the mean motion.
Since their approach does not require an active transponder, they will
hopefully refine their calculations over the next few weeks.

 


-- 
 __________________________________________________________________________  
  Stacey E. Mills, W4SM    WWW: 	http://www.cstone.net/~w4sm/ham1.html 
   Charlottesville, VA	   PGP key:	http://www.cstone.net/~w4sm/key.asc    	
 __________________________________________________________________________


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