Thanks Armando.
I believe their original plans were to de-orbit the spacecraft around February. I'm presuming from the Google translation that the failure to deploy the "Tail" means they are unable to de-orbit as planned ?
I guess this means it may remain in space until the orbit decays naturally.
PW-SAT has the capability of acting as an FM to DSB (U/V) transponder.
73 Trevor M5AKA
--- On Thu, 27/12/12, Armando Mercado [email protected] wrote:
From: Armando Mercado [email protected] Subject: [amsat-bb] PW-Sat news To: [email protected] Date: Thursday, 27 December, 2012, 17:11 Hello All,
This may be old news, but I came across this from: http://www.kosmonauta.net/menu-bezzalogowe/menu-artykuly-bezzalogowe/orbital...
The following is a google translation (a little rough but you can get the idea):
Since our last report on the PW-Sat satellite, it's been five months. What has happened with the first Polish satellite in the meantime?
PW-Sat - the first Polish satellite and the first Polish satellite student - was placed in orbit 13 February 2012. The satellite was released from the P-POD tray about 70 minutes after launch Vega rocket, which is at about 12:10 CET. The original orbit of the satellite is about 310 x 1442 km. The first signal from the PW-Sat has already taken an hour after the release of the tray P-POD, during his first flight over the Polish. The signal received from the radio amateurs all over the world.
Then began the work of PW-SATEMA in orbit. The first week passed on listening satellites. Then studied the satellite parameters and assumptions were verified. In the coming weeks, a team of students from the Warsaw University of Technology, tested the different modes of operation PW-SATA, which is one of the goals of this project. Satellite work properly, and then it seemed like before Easter this year should lead to the development of the tail PW-SAT. That did not happen - it turned out that during the first work of PW-SATEMA were used in a large amount of stored energy in the batteries satellites.
In May, there is information that will be renewed attempt to open a satellite tail. Unfortunately, in the coming weeks, the operation failed. Currently (11 October 2012) PW-Sat still stays in orbit without the striped tail. Satellite works, although it is quite a serious problem with the communication system, which is probably a bug in the hardware (there were similar failures with other users of the equipment). This problem very limited communication capabilities of PW-SATEMA. Soon to be published instructions for amateurs - perhaps because it can be spread tail PW-Sata
- are, therefore, still some
chance of achieving this mission.
Currently, the mission met PW-Sat to 4 of 7 total goals of the expedition. The fifth goal was partially completed. It is therefore clear that the mission PW-Sat, despite the difficulties, already can be considered a great success. On the basis of experience - the positive and the negative - it will be possible to conduct further advanced projects. Warsaw University of Technology recently sent a request to the mission PW-Sat 2 to the European Space Agency (ESA), which offers a small gathering a CubeSat mission. It was one of two or three (edit - the source of a comment below this article) CubeSatowych Polish projects submitted to the ESA.
(IAC 2012, Maciej Urbanowicz)
The catolog number of PW-Sat is 38083. It beacons irregularly in daylight on 145.902. I have not listened for it for several weeks. It enters an eclipse free period from Dec 29, 2012 to Jan. 13, 2013 so the next couple of weeks would be a good time to give a listen. This satellite carries an AO-16 style transponder, but given the power and commanding issues, it does not look like it will ever be turned on.
73, Armando N8IGJ
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