Tag Archives: AO-73

Solar Eclipse 2015

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Solar Eclipse and AO-73 on 20-03-2015 starts 07:41 UTC and ends at 11:50 UTC.

Eclipse-2015

Coming Friday there will be a solar eclipse and during this eclipse there are in my case 3 AO-73 (FUNcube-1) passes that go through this region. Therefore it is interesting to see how this phenomenon influences the satellite.

For my location (JO21) the following times are interesting (Times in CEST = UTC+1)

Solar Eclipse path 20-03-2015

First AO-73 pass in this periode starts 09:21 CEST
Second AO-73 pass in this periode starts 10:57 CEST (best opportunity)
Third AO-73 pass in this periode starts 12:33 CEST

When you look closely to the below image, taken from Oribitron you can see that Sun and Moon fall over each other.

AO-73-Eclipse

I will listen for the AO-73 beacon during these three passes and upload the data to the FUNcube Warehouse.

NASA | Shadow of the Moon. The Moon’s shadow will create a total solar eclipse. This video presents several visualizations of what this shadow would look like from space, and highlights the areas of the world in the path of the umbra and penumbra.

Tomorrow AO-73 Continuous Transponder

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Tomorrow 22-03-2014 there will be a FUNcube-1 (AO-73) Continuous Transponder Test.

AO-73 Flight modelFUNcube-1 (AO-73) will be commanded into continuous transponder mode for one or two orbits so we can assess the effect of lower power being radiated by the sat on the battery temperature. We expect the satellite to be put into full time transponder mode (aka amateur mode) during the first morning pass on Saturday, March 22 over the UK, at approximately 0930 UTC.

Please upload as many telemetry frames as possible so the group can analyze the effect on the battery.

Below the Orbitron pass prediction for Western Europe based on CEST (UTC+1)

Time zone     : UTC +1:00
Search period : 03-22-2014 00:00:00 - 1 days
                03-22-2014 24:00:00

Time                Satellite              Azm  Elv  Mag Range S.Azm S.Elv
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
03-22-2014 10:31:06 AO-73                 90.8 20.1    ?  1406 138.6  31.5
03-22-2014 12:07:53 AO-73                289.9 50.9    ?   764 167.1  38.4
03-22-2014 13:43:20 AO-73                310.5  8.6    ?  2075 197.5  37.8
03-22-2014 19:58:15 AO-73                 45.7  6.0    ?  2387 284.4 -10.1
03-22-2014 21:33:29 AO-73                 65.6 34.0  ecl  1077 305.0 -23.5
03-22-2014 23:09:55 AO-73                263.9 34.1  ecl  1078 330.1 -33.6

The full article can be found at the Amsat-UK website: FUNcube continuous Transponder Test