Re: [amsat-bb] AO-40

[Robert McGwier <rwmcgwier@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The best we can give you Bob is an opinion since we have little 
conclusive evidence about what happened.   In the end, we would just be 
guessing.  We have evidence that nothing good happened at the end with 
the auxiliary battery string being shorted across the primary battery 
string which was developing an internal short.  We know from an analysis 
of the orbital elements following this set of mission ending events that 
something happened to significantly change the mean motion.  AO-40 is a 
big spacecraft so it must have been quite a bit of energy.

I would not spend all my AMSAT budget line item getting ready for 
AO-40's return.

The technical folks in AMSAT-NA and AMSAT-DL and the elected officials 
in AMSAT-NA are concentrating on the future:  Phase 3 Express and AMSAT 
Eagle.  Recent board actions by AMSAT-DL say they are concentrating on 
the future and working to stay positive and to have a very beneficial 
impact on our facet of the hobby.  Other than that, they should speak 
for themselves.  We are looking backwards only insofar as making sure we 
do things in a better way.  AMSAT-DL has very good project management 
for P3E with Heike Straube managing that.  Peter is a very good 
president for AMSAT-DL given all I can see.  With the possible exception 
of this author,  Rick Hambly has assembled a very good team.  The Eagle 
project is just exploding in activity with a new face as the project 
manager there and he has lots of good news to tell folks.  WB4GCS, 
former commander of the USS Hawes and the reactor officer on the USS 
Teddy Roosevelt is our new face as project manager.  He has the 
necessary management experience and skills we need to run a tidy ship.  
;-).  Stay tuned for action reports.

Bob
N4HY
VP Engineering AMSAT-NA


Robert V Johnson wrote:

>Hello All
>Is there as probability of AO-40 resurecting itself as in AO-7?  Or is
>AO-40 a done deal.
>
>73 Bob W7LRD
>Seattle
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