karn (05/19/82)
More information on the new Soviet amateur radio satellite, from the
regular Tuesday night Amsat net, 9pm EST on 3850 Khz:
Keplerian element set #43 for Salyut-7, catalog number 13138:
Epoch: 1982 135.23118989
Mean anomaly at epoch: 55.8167 degrees
Inclination: 51.5941 degrees
Eccentricity: .0002452
Mean motion: 15.75128484 rev/day (a VERY low orbit!)
Drag factor: .0003028 rev/day^2 (an order of magnitude worse than Uosat)
Arg of perigee: 304.2741 deg
Right ascension of ascending node: 20.6840 deg
Epoch rev number: 403
>From these numbers, the period is 91.345922 minutes, the apogee is
346km and the perigee is 343km. Because the orbit is so low, it
will be difficult to predict long periods in advance. It will
probably have a very short orbital lifetime.
For at least a while, these elements should be a close approximation
to the orbit of the amateur sub-satellite. Depending on how hard
the cosmonauts kicked the spacecraft out the door, the two
spacecraft orbits will diverge slowly or rapidly with time.
It is believed that the spacecraft carries a transponder with a 21
mhz (15 meter) input and a 29 mhz (10 meter) output. If so, this is
the first time the 15 meter band has been used for such a purpose.
The beacon on 29.578 Mhz has been received by a number of stations
and is quite strong.
In other news, Uosat is still in trouble. Both beacons are still
locked on, densensing the command receivers. Attempts at both 2m
and 70cm moonbounce stations to command the beacons OFF have not yet
been successful, although attempts are being continued.
ESA has set a launch date for Phase III-B in January, 1983, aboard
Ariane L7. The primary passenger will still be ECS-1; problems with
the design of ECS-1 has been the cause of the delay. The phase-IIIB
spacecraft itself is nearing completion, as the transponders will be
arriving from Germany this week. The spacecraft will start
environmental testing within the next several weeks.
Phil Karn, KA9Q