Jerry,
Thanks for the clarification. It is unfortunate that it got removed, but understandable. Hopefully the batteries will last the entire 11 year lifetime of the orbit and, if not, that newer and better satellites will continually be launched!
Is the feature that allows the FM transponder to function in the event of IHU failure still on board?
73,
Paul, N8HM
On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 1:19 PM, Jerry Buxton amsat@n0jy.org wrote:
On 7/22/2014 9:21 AM, Paul Stoetzer wrote:
Off the top of my head:
AO-51 - Battery failure (Problem fixed in Fox series - shorted batteries will be cut loose from the circuit and the satellite will operate when in the sun)
This is an original conops for Fox-1 that did not make it to reality. In fact this requirement was removed over a year ago because it could not be suitably implemented to fit in the space available on the PCB. You see, at that time new inhibit requirements that were received from the launch providers caused us to have to re-engineer the battery board. Moving the battery fail feature to another board was not possible because we could not afford to be redesigning the whole satellite, moving things around from each board to another to find room, in the time left to delivery (at that point the launch had not yet slipped to 2015 and we were due to deliver in March 2014). The choice had to be made to cut the battery fail protection from the battery board in order to incorporate the inhibits, to make the launch. The removal of this feature was brought forth at the Symposium last year, but the tale lives on. Yes, it was an outstanding feature but as has been pointed out in some of the other emails going on right now, there is a real limit to what we can fit in a 1U CubeSat and in the time and under the provisions allowed by our rideshare. Don't think it didn't get cut without a fight! :-)
The Fox-1A Engineering Unit is sitting on the official AMSAT test table in my shack right now, having arrived FedEx this morning after some time "in the shop" for fixes to hardware that we found in the first round of EU testing and having a new IHU all installed. I'm getting ready to load new software with the latest DSP and flight features. Stay tuned...
Jerry Buxton, NØJY
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb