Justin,
Actually, the orbit is holding up pretty well for AO-51. The ISS is big enough, and low enough, that drag is a significant factor. Drag is _roughly_ 200 times higher for the ISS than AO-51. Even ARISSat-1, which will start at the ISS orbit, will have a lifetime of much less than a year. There is a good article on this in the latest AMSAT Journal.
What we really need is for the Energizer Bunny to stop by and swap out the batteries. And while he is at it, he can stop by a couple of other satellites and tap on them with a hammer to free up some stuck relays.
73s,
Alan WA4SCA
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Justin Pinnix Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 8:41 AM To: [email protected] Cc: AMSAT-BB; SAREX-BB Subject: [sarex] Re: [amsat-bb] ISS to be reboosted June 3rd
Do you think that if we asked real, real, nicely they'd go boost AO-51 for us while they're up there? :-)
Just kidding - I know the reasons why this could never realistically be done. But it does give me a great deal of appreciation for how reliable a satellite can be when someone else is doing the stationkeeping work for us who has resources beyond what we could ever imagine.
73 de AJ4MJ On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 8:28 AM, Alan P. Biddle [email protected] wrote:
According to Roscosmos, the ISS will have its orbit raised 3.74 km Friday. This will result in a "slippage" of predicted times of approximately 70 seconds per day until the Keps catch up. The AMSAT NASA.ALL Keps will probably not reflect this until next week, so be certain to update from Celstrak or Space Track.
http://www.federalspace.ru/main.php?id=2&nid=11848&lang=en
73s,
Alan WA4SCA
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---- Sent via [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/sarex