Hear, hear. I’m certainly not qualified to troubleshoot a satellite from 600km away, so I will leave that to the experts and do what I can to help, which consists of contributing to AMSAT and staying out of the way of the engineers.
As somebody recently said, “Space is hard.” There’s no guarantee any of these missions will be a success. Does that mean AMSAT shouldn’t try? Heck no; please keep trying. And I’ll happily contribute to future efforts to the best of my ability, because the success rate is still pretty high, and it isn’t cheap. I get a great deal of pleasure from satellite operating; least I can do is pay my fair share.
Thanks to the entire Engineering team for their efforts. It means a lot.
Sean Kutzko KX9X
On Dec 10, 2018, at 10:05 AM, Don KB2YSI kb2ysi@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks to Drew and Jerry for the additional information, even though the situation is not what anyone wanted hear.
I will echo John's statement. For those who have worked so hard on this bird, along with those before it and those to come, THANK YOU! Without people with the knowledge and skills to get a satellite into orbit, we would not have anything to enjoy.
On Mon, Dec 10, 2018 at 2:03 AM Jerry Buxton n0jy@amsat.org wrote:
On 12/9/2018 18:17, Fred Castello wrote: I am just curious why we are not discussing the apparent failure of the
receiver of AO-95. Do we know anything more about the issue?
Thanks all, Fred – KF4FC
Hi Fred,
I'm not sure if you were referring to We the amsat-bb list members? I have to say that I figured there would be much more chatter here than I have seen so far, anyway.
If by We you mean We the AMSAT Engineering team, of course we have been discussing the problem, possible causes, and working on leads ever since the anomaly became known. Certainly many of us are unhappy at not succeeding in making everybody else happy, but that is not the reason for my silence in terms of sharing with the public. Right now, with no readily apparent reason or reasons for the behavior, there is nothing else to report.
The situation has gone from a commissioning to being challenge, which is actually fun and we're on it. We are looking at data from a number of sources, as well as our past experiences with the other Fox-1 satellites during their journey from the BOM to orbit. Ideas such as the one Drew mentioned about employing a mega-QRO station to see if it can be heard by the bird have been on the table for several days but I don't plan to report or discuss every thought we have in working this unless and until it is something of merit or actionable. As you probably know, our resources are limited and it's all volunteered time. Most if not all of our remaining Fox-1 engineers are also involved in the GOLF-TEE project so I have asked them to give that first priority with their available volunteer time in order to keep the schedule. AO-95 is in orbit now and we can vary the amount of attention on her as resources allow in order to achieve both goals. If the results of our investigation point to a possibility of recovery be it partial, full, or some workaround method, we would all like to see her working as much as the rest of you and that is a driver for this investigation. But perhaps the most important driver is that there are lessons to be learned for the betterment of future missions. I expect us to continue to look for the cause or causes until we have results or reach a dead end because of the inability to take the lid off and look inside AO-95.
The main point of the ANS is to let everyone know that commissioning won't be happening, certainly not in the period that everyone has grown accustomed to if at all, so that members and users can get on with enjoying their activities on all of the other satellites. Many had been waiting in anticipation and wondering why talk of AO-95 commissioning seemed so quiet, so once we were sure that it didn't appear to be an intermittent thing we shared the news. And as I said in the ANS, I will certainly be keeping everyone posted when we have something new to report so in the meantime please carry on and enjoy the birds!
Jerry Buxton, NØJY
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-- 73, Don KB2YSI https://www.hamqth.com/kb2ysi _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb