Det gr framt med den nya satelliten Echo enligt nedanstende AMSAT-notis:
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 158.02 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD. June 6, 2004
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-158.02
Echo is making excellent progress and is expected to be ready to ship to the launch site during the second week of June. Testing of all the functions of Echo after installation of the flight harness has been completed and the S-band transmitter power output has been verified as 2.45 Watts. Downlinks at data rates up to 38k4 on both 70cm and S-band have been confirmed to work fine. The wideband receiver (SQRX) which can tune from HF through L-band has also been tested.
The programmable magnetic torque rod has been preset so that the proper end of the satellite will stabilize down after launch. It can be changed once on orbit if needed. Takes about a minute to fully re-polarize the rod by command from the ground. The development team reports that all the hardware has been quite solid.
Due to the delay we ve had the chance to put quite a bit more time on all of it without any problems. Currently the planned launch period is four weeks beginning June 28, 2004. Once in orbit the command and Ops teams will be working together to assure everything is working ok and get it into it s initial normal modes as quickly as possible given the necessary caution. After that it will be open to the Users.
[ANS thanks Jim, WD0E for the above information]
Klla: ANS 158