Evening Ted.... I think that as always , you have come up with the one piece of documentation we had all overlooked . The analogy of the useless "ice cube." fits perfectly with my perception of the object in the images and along with dear Ivans radio obs may well make up the missing pieces of the jigsaw.In fact during an interview last night I rather irreverently refered to it as a "chunk of junk " Unless something unforseen happens , 193 is about to start a run of visible morning passes over Europe. For me , the weather is looking hopeful , dare I say promising , for three passes above 56 degree elevation over the weekend. Lets hope we can get some good naked eye reports and imagery :o) Thanks again, John > Aviation Week and Space Technology has reported on a classified satellite > which > entered safe-hold mode just 7 seconds after reaching orbit, and never came > out > of safe-hold; I suspect this was in reference to USA 193: > > http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/SBIRS101507.xml&channel > =space > > Entry into safe-hold so soon after reaching orbit may have precluded > deployment > of the solar-panels. Perhaps they generated some power in their stowed > position, > but insufficient to maintain the charge on the batteries. > > The late Ivan Artner and other radio monitors heard it transmit a strong > signal > on 2249.5 MHz for about 1.5 days after launch, after which it fell silent. > On > his final reception, Ivan experienced three signal dropouts of several > millisecond duration, which may have been a sign of trouble with the > transmitter > or the power supply. All this seems consistent with failure to deploy > solar > panels, and subsequent rapid battery run-down. > > Ted Molczan > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: > http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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