Hi all, I just watched the Simplesat microsatellite being deployed from Discovery's payload bay. It happened ay 18:29 UT and it tumbled slowly at a rate of about 1 rev per 4 minutes on its longitudinal axis. It even produced a nice slow flare, so there's a chance it can be seen naked eye leading the suttle since it will be in a lower orbit. It was ejected toward the ground at 5 ft/sec. The tumbling should be stopped sometimes early in the mission because it will test attitude control using GPS. It is supposed to take about two orbits to recharge its batteries. Cheers, Dan -- Daniel Deak representant, projet spatial Starshine Drummondville, Quebec COSPAR site 1746 : 45.8537°N, 72.4857°W, 90 m., UTC-4:00 Site en francais sur les satellites: French-language satellite web site : http://www.obsat.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Aug 20 2001 - 11:41:58 PDT