The reason for the heavy mass is to support the atmospheric drag study. The satellites are near perfect spheres, I think 32 micron roughness. Castor is stuffed pretty tight with electronics, and instruments and still was not enough. There are 112 D cell Lithium batteries stuffed in there.
Pollux is lighter and actually had to have the shells thinned a bit to meet the lower mass requirement and has only 28 D cells. The cells are 19 AH lithium primary cells.
Since power is very limited, stuffing it with electronics was not an option. Castor needs to run on batteries for a year while Pollux 6 months. Pollux is expected to reenter in a little less than 6 months. Castor will come back in a year.
Ivan
On Jul 29, 2009, at 5:33 PM, Joe wrote:
Ok,
The next question is then,, WHY? when all we ever hear all the time is Bitch ,, Bitch,, BITCH,,, about the high cost per pound to get something into orbit?
Here again, instead of thick shell, why not pack in some useful electronics?
DUH?
Joe WB9SBD
Ivan Galysh wrote:
The hemispheres are about 1/2 inch thick solid aluminum. It's built to be heavy.
Ivan
Joe wrote:
Pretty cool,
But Ok I see what is all in this thing, but holy cow,,, what is in it that makes it weigh 140 POUNDS!!! a 19" sphere, wow!
Joe WB9SBD
g7iii@g7iii.net wrote:
Hi Joe,
You Wrote:
have any idea as to what the telemetry may consist of?
Telemetry is documented on the website Bob referenced, on each Satellite's own page, see:
https://goby.nrl.navy.mil/ANDE/Castor.html and https://goby.nrl.navy.mil/ANDE/Pollux.html
TX is on 145.825, so any Satgate should pick them up and transfer the data to APRS-IS.
I suppose I should go update my APRS/PCSAT/PCSAT2/ANDE telemetry decoder now. Wish I'd realised these were going to be this "open" earlier *mutter*.
73s
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