It's not so much a problem of not enough illumination, but more that we
are running on 3 or 3.5 cells, and we need ~4 to make the transmitters
work. There may be some points during the orbit when the V gets high
enough for the transmitter to come on at low power, but that is
conjecture only. We don't know when or really even if that will happen.
If a cell opens up in the future, the IHU will immediately crash upon
eclipse, and the battery voltage -may- rise to whatever the panels can
provide. If this happens we may be able to restart the IHU and get a
transmitter running, but it will only last until the next eclipse.
73, Drew KO4MA
PS. I note that the UK-DMC1 satellite was retired today after 8 years in
orbit due to battery condition. We are almost as good as the mega-dollar
pros!
http://blog.sstl.co.uk/archives/394-UK-DMC-1-to-take-well-earned-retirement.html
On 11/29/2011 3:49 PM, PE0SAT wrote:
Hi,
Thanks for reading.
Is there an expected state when the voltage is high enough regarding AO-51.
The reason I ask, is to listen and see if there is some life in the
satellite when the voltage becomes high enough when there is full exposure
after the coming eclipse periode.
73 Jan PE0SAT
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