They already plan to fill it with garbage before undock and deorbit. "The Jules Verne will remain at the station until August. Once the station crew has unloaded it and repacked it with trash, the ATV will undock and begin its final flight into the Earth's atmosphere, where it will burn up over the Pacific Ocean. " Source http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/atv_extraordinaire.h tml
You might convince ESA to linger a bit before deorbit to conduct some experimentation using amateur radio but I suspect they will want to clear that double decker bus sized satellite from the sky.
Kenneth - N5VHO
-----Original Message----- From: amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Moore Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 1:23 PM To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Re-purposing ATVs
They have to fill it with garbage first :-)
Jeff Moore -- KE7ACY
----- Original Message ----- From: wa6ilt@verizon.net
I was reading about the Jules Verne docking at the ISS today and all of a sudden it occurred to me: instead of using the spacecraft fuel to de-orbit, what if it was placed in a higher orbit, and there was a ham package on board?
Dave Reinhart wa6ilt@amsat.org
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