David Wing wrote:
Drew,
When you say "flip the orientation of the satellite", do you mean a physical change of the orientation or are you referring to some other orientation that is not necessarily a physical change (maybe a change in the RF polarization or something like that).
It will be a physical reorientation of the spacecraft. There is a large reversible bar magnet that causes the spacecraft to align it's self to the the magnetic field of the planet, and we are going to remagnetize it in the opposite sense. Take a look at http://www.coloradosatellite.com/Papers/Motion.html, especially Figure 2, for a far better explanation than I can give.
Is this being done in an attempt to mitigate the impact of the decreasing rate of spin?
No, it's more finally testing the hardware experiment that was included over five years ago on AO-51. It may or may not have some effect on the spin. It'll be interesting to see!
73, Drew KO4MA