I detected no noticible tumble recently. Is this the consensus, or is it so slow as to be un noticible?
If there is any spin at all, then it will be about the Z axis and thus the pointing of the Z axis will not change much.
And if it does not change much, and is pointing near the sun, then we woiuld have little power. If itis poiting closer to 90 degrees off the sun, then we would have good power.
As the spacecraft tumbles in direct sunlight, ...th ere are some orientations ...that result in not quite enough power to run everything.
So has anyone done a spin determination?
I guess this email is pretty useless. I began it thinking (wrongly) that a Z spin would change its orientation to the sun during each orbit and so we could determin from the power nulls where it was pointing. But once I got into the email, I realized that it's spin would be in inertial space and so its axis to the sun would be relatively fixed (except for any wobble). So in that case, any change (other than eclipses) in relative sun angle on the Z axis is going to be very slow changing.. (if I got this right... or not).
thanks Bob, WB4APR