[email protected] wrote:
One key component of failure analysis is the availability of data, especially telemetry. [snip] My question is, can the satellite user community at large come up with a system that allows the routine capturing of satellite telemetry? Is there a role that AMSAT can play? What would it take?
Thoughts are appreciated.
Hi, Here's my thoughts...
I would like to see a system put in place that is similar to the one that was up and running while AO-40 was alive. That is, multiple groundstations around the world could receive the telemetry using whatever modem they used and forward that telemetry over the Internet (in either realtime or via email) to a central site which both archives and disseminates the telemetry to other groundstations. The archives were (and still are) publicly available on AMSAT web/ftp site at
http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ftp/telemetry/ao40
I suppose if we asked the right people we could easily get hard drive space on that server to start archiving telemetry from other satellites.
A very nice side effect of the collection efforts was that you could point your telemetry display program (which was not necessarily the same as the program that collected the telemetry and sent it to the server) at the telemetry server and the server would send current live telemetry to you as others sent their telemetry in to the server. In this way you could watch ("Live!") the progress of the satellite even when it was on the other side of the world and even if you yourself lacked the radios and/or modems. This was a lot of fun.
By a curious coincidence, I have been working on a 9600 baud soundcard demodulator for Echo along with a telemetry display program and an Internet telemetry reflector.
Ok, who wants to help?
Douglas KA2UPW/5