Keith, The text reads:
Engineer Jorge Lassig, director of the Penhuesat Uncoma project informed that the satellite takes between 48 and 72 hours to charge its batteries, due to the inadequate position of the cone to which it is still attached in reference to the sun. Once the batteries are recovered, the sat transmits during several orbits until they discharge again. At that moment, the onboard computer sets the system in safe mode, leaving just the oscillator on. Folks at Uncoma are evaluating when the cone will change its position in space, to benefit the battery charging process of Penhuesat (the cone has no attitude control). More info to follow. Regards, Ignacio Mazzitelli (LU1ESY)
HTH, Ricardo, W3/HK4BHA
----- Original Message ----- From: "Keith N4ZQ" n4zq@netzero.net To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 7:08 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] Translation Needed For Pehuensat Note
My Spanish is nil and Babel Fish Translation does seem to do a very good job of it, would someone translate this message for me.
http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr
El ing. jorge lassig director del proyecto pehuensat de la uncoma, informo que el satelite demora entre 48 y 72 horas en cargar sus baterias, debido a la posicion inadecuada del cono donde esta sujeto el sat respecto del sol. recuperadas las baterias, el satelite emite durante varias orbitas hasta la descarga de las mismas. en ese momento, la computadora de a bordo pone al sistema en modo seguro y solo deja encendido el oscilador. en uncoma estan evaluando cuando el cono cambiara su posicion en el espacio, para beneficiar la carga de baterias del pehuensat (el cono no tiene control de atitud). mas info en breve. saludos ignacio mazzitelli (lu1esy)
From what little I could extract from Babel Fish it appears that
Pehuensat is still attached to the cone? And the cone does not have any attitude control so Pehuensat only gets sun on it's solar panel when the cone rotates around to the correct position? Is this correct? If so, it would explain a lot of questions as to the design and why it's not being heard more.
It's interesting to note that 9W2QC and BX1AD reports both occurred when the satellite was in eclipse. 9W2QC copy came 4 minutes after entering eclipse. Probably Pehuensat got enough sun before eclipse to charge up the batteries for a few bust of voice messages and data.
Appreciate a translation to help understand why I'm not hearing Pehuensat and the SWL reports seem to be few and far between.
Keith N4ZQ
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