On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 9:16 PM, Walter Nissen <wnissen@tfn.net> wrote: > I'd like to know if Iridium P27 28 = Iridium 28 = 24948 = 97-51E > has failed and should be given the additional designation P2 T . It appears that Iridium 28 (24948,1997-051E) suffered a complete communications failure on July 17, 2008. It was replaced a few days later by Iridium 95 (27375, 2002-005D). > Is it possible that P27 also partly failed, and is being held > as a possible spare should a fully working spare not, at some > future time, be available ? No. Iridium 28 died on station. > There is at least a suspicion that one of P29R and P2AR partly > failed, resulting in them being swapped in the operational array . Iridium 30 and 31 exchanged places in the constellation on September 19-22, 2002. The most likely reason for exchanging their positions seems to be to match up failed cross-link antennae to reduce the number of missing links, though I have not had official confirmation of this. I await further developments in Orbital Plane 3. Regards ... Rod ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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