Hello All,

On 15 Sept 2008 at 10:58 UTC I commanded AO-16 ON and put it in voice mode.  As of the time of this message (16 Sept 2008 at 17:10 UTC), AO-16 is still being reported as operational.  That is over 30 hours of continuous uptime, which is a "good thing."  Our predictions regarding sustained activities seem to be right on the mark.  Recording your observations about AO-16 at http://oscar.dcarr.org/  has been, and will continue to be, very helpful to us.

It is possible that the transmitter will turn OFF; this requires some commanding to get it running again, which means a pass over the Eastern US coast is required for a change in status.   But we're hoping that the bird will remain ON more often than OFF for the next several weeks.

Illumination projects (and subsequent temperature predictions) suggest that we might be able to sustain operations until early November.  So, if you want some AO-16 contacts, you had better get them before then.  After November 2008, it may be a long, long, time before the orbit provides favorable temperatures for the bird to remain operational for more than a few seconds or minutes at a time...

Current operational mode for AO-16

Mode FM Voice Repeater ( Downlink is DSB) Uplink : 145.9200 MHz FM Downlink 437.0260 MHz SSB

One behalf of the command team,