SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-130 01 AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin - ARISSat-1 Update

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 130 01

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD May 10, 2011 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-130 01

The ARISSat-1 satellite was intended to be activated in April as part of the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's famous flight However, no ground stations reported hearing the satellite To follow up, the ARISSat-1 team had a teleconference with represent- atives of RSC-Energia (Russia) and NASA to request a clarification of the events and discuss what happened

According to RSC-Energia, the battery in ARISSat-1 was only charged once on the ground and was then used for a variety of tests and dur- ing the February activation event It was not recharged prior to the April Yuri Gagarin activity since it can only be charged a limited number of times on the ISS

The cosmonauts reported that they activated the satellite and con- firmed that they heard the signal on the ham radio equipment on board the ISS Since the battery was nearly depleted of its original charge, they switched the satellite off after six hours of operation in order to prevent over-discharging the battery The battery was then removed from the satellite and stored separately as per their normal battery handling procedures For more information on this battery, please see the JAN/FEB 2011 AMSAT Journal

RSC-Energia reported that their plan is to recharge the battery about three weeks prior to the EVA deployment This will give the cosmonauts time to reinstall the battery and test the satellite to make sure it is working properly The EVA deployment is planned for late July of this year

[ANS thanks AMSAT Vice-President of Engineering, Tony Monteiro, AA2TX for the above information]

/EX

Via the ANS mailing list courtesy of AMSAT-NA http://amsat org/mailman/listinfo/ans

The following information is a reminder of your current mailing list subscription:

You are subscribed to the following list: [list_name]

using the following email: example@example.com

You may automatically unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL:

https://aus-city com/cgi-bin/dada/mail cgi/u/RADIOCOMM_LIST/example/example com/

If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break this automatic unsubscribe mechanism

You may also change your subscription by visiting this list's main screen:

<[program_url]/list/[list]>

If you're still having trouble, please contact the list owner at:

<mailto:[list_owner_email]>

The following physical address is associated with this mailing list:

[physical_address]