They say that no question is a dumb question, so here goes - since I haven't seen this discussed before, but maybe I missed it.
What makes AO-7 so special? Why is it that we lost AO-10, AO-13 and all the others in the past several years, yet this one is still working? I know the batteries are dead, but I'm primarily interested in how this bird is able to stay in it's orbit for over 30 years? And if it's orbit is decaying, how is it that it has apparently decayed so slowly?
I was under the impression that unless a satellite is occasionally 'boosted', it will eventually re-enter? I somehow doubt AO-7 has any fuel left in it's boosters; if it had any.
73 de W4AS Sebastian
On Apr 9, 2009, at 11:01 PM, Greg D. wrote:
Yeah, this is one grand old bird (the satellite, I mean). If you look at the planetary statistics, the median age of the human population is about 26.8 as of 2000, and growing slowly. That makes AO-07, at age 35, significantly older than more than half of the people on Earth.
Greg KO6TH (one of the few older than AO-07...)