[amsat-bb] Squawks about the ATOS

[Margaret Leber <maggie@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Saturday 07 July 2001 14:27, Jon Ogden wrote:

> I've had faith and defended the control team, but we've now gotten 3
> times the desired increase in perigee height and burned 7 times the
> fuel (56 kg vs. 8).  Something doesn't add up.

Obvioulsy something went wrong. At a quick glance it does sound 
suspicuously like the same kind of "opened a valve and then couldn't 
get it closed" type of failure mode as occurred with the bipropellant 
motor. 

However, let's remeber that it took quite a while for intensive 
telemetry analysis to produce a best-guess answer as to exactly what 
had happened to the bipropellant motor. 

Once the bird is 3-axis stable and the wings are deployed, we'll have 
*years* to armchair quarterback what happened to the ATOS. (Our non-US 
friends may understand the "armchair quarterback" idiom better as 
"back-seat driver". :-)) Until then I think the control team's 
attention is probably better spent on flying the bird.

It's not like a fast answer is better than an accurate one.

73 de Maggie K3XS

-- 
-----/___.   _)   Margaret Stephanie Leber    / "The art of progress  /
----/(, /|  /| http://voicenet.com/~maggie   / consists of preserving/
---/   / | / |  _   _   _    `  _AOPA 925383/ order amid change and /
--/ ) /  |/  |_(_(_(_/_(_/__(__(/_  FN20hd / change amid order."   /
-/ (_/   '  K3XS  .-/ .-/    ARRL 39280   /___ --A.N.Whitehead ___/
/____ICQ 7161096_(_/_(_/__AMSAT 32844____/ <maggie@voicenet.com>

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