I reached out today and talked to a professional astronomer, and here is the response. Before we start a project to actually take a detailed photo of the AO-40 in Space, could someone work with me directly to determine the coordinates that we could provide as requested:
Hi Samudra,
We would have to know the exact coordinates ahead of time, point the telescope there, then start imaging as it flies through the field of view.
Since we've never done it, I don't know how doable it actually is. I'm pretty certain we don't have the cameras...
It's possible, but we would need more info and possible differetn equipment.
The group I approached is a reputable one associated with their own observatory, locally to the Washington DC area. If anyone is interested to help out with the mathematics required, please contact me directly at n3rdx@amsat.org. I know of two other groups who can be approached locally, but we must given them all the details of size/configuration etc. Could be an interesting intellectual challenge while people are waiting for new sats to be designed.
-samudra
On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Peter Guelzow peter.guelzow@kourou.de wrote:
Hi Robert,
that's indeed the big question... We do not know in which attitude the spacecraft is.. is it still spinning very slowly or tumbling? What is the Solar-ß-Angel? If the S/C has a good orientation to the sun and the battery opens, than there should be enough power to operate the IHU and Beacon etc... do some magnetorquing to improve attitude. Something like this was done when AO-10 was hit by the last rocket stage, spinning the wrong direction with sun directly on top and almost no power... Unfolding the solar panels would give very high power only when they are oriented towards the sun. With folded solar arrays, all panels around the satellite can still see the sun around it's spin axis. Only when it shines on top or bottom, we will have problems...
73s Peter
Rocky Jones wrote:
Peter.
In the current configuration (or the last known config) of the vehicle does the vehicle have sufficient solar illumination to "spin" and maintain the DC busses without a battery?
Robert WB5MZO
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