[TWIAR] SSETI goes SSilent

[Greg Williams]

SSETI Express satellite goes silent (Oct 28, 2005) -- 

The Student Space Exploration and Technology Initiative (SSETI) Express
satellite, sent into orbit from Russia October 27, has gone silent. "We have
not heard anything from Express on UHF since last night when the telemetry
seemed to indicate a very negative power budget," Graham Shirville, G3VZV,
said on the AMSAT BB as he was departing Russia following the launch. "If it
does not recover then it will be a sad end to a wonderful mission." 

Shirville said ground controllers were going to attempt a blind command of
the satellite this weekend in an effort to revive the satellite, which
carries an Amateur Radio package and three CubeSat picosatellites. The
spacecraft had been transmitting AX.25 telemetry at 9k6 bps on 437.250 MHz. 

Shortly after this week's launch, Shirville had reported the satellite was
in nominal mode, producing 9k6 data bursts every 18 seconds. Plans call for
the satellite will be turned into a single-channel amateur FM voice Mode U/S
transponder after the transmitter serves initial telemetry duty. The
AMSAT-UK and AMSAT-NA Web sites have additional information on this European
Space Agency-sponsored project, in which SSETI Express was built by a
distributed team of university students and radio amateurs throughout
Europe. Additional details are on the SSETI Express Web site.

http://www.sseti.org/express

Gregory S. Williams
k4hsm at lock-net.com