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 Previous: ARISS Announces Roy Neal, K6DUE, ISS Commemorative Event |  Next: Operating 1x1 for the Tour de France |
NEWINGTON, CT, Nov 11, 2003--The UO-14 satellite has been declared officially dead. The Mission Control Centre at the Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) Center for Satellite Engineering Research reports that the venerable and popular bird "has reached the end of its mission after nearly 14 years in orbit." Launched in 1990, UoSAT-OSCAR-14 pioneered the PACSAT communication concept as the first 9.6 kbps Amateur Radio data communications satellite, although it became best known in recent years as an FM "easy sat" repeater.
"Since launch, UO-14 has completed over 72,000 orbits and as many charge/discharge cycles of its on-board NiCd battery," said AMSAT-UK Chairman Martin Sweeting, G3YJO. "However recently one of the battery cells has become exhausted and can no longer support continuous operation of the repeater." Sweeting said UO-14's transmitter shuts down shortly after it is commanded "on" due to undervoltage, so the microsatellite's mission has been terminated.
"Thank you UO-14 for your long service!" Sweeting concluded.
AMSAT-NA Board Member Bruce Paige, KK5DO, an enthusiastic UO-14 user, called the AMSAT-UK announcement "sad news." He said the lost of UO-14 leaves amateurs with SO-41 and SO-50 as the only two LEO FM voice satellites now in operation, although he noted that the planned 2004 launches of the OSCAR-ECHO and VUSAT could help fill in the void.
The popular and heavily used FM satellite
quit working in August, but hope remained within the amateur satellite
community that UO-14 somehow could be revived. Ground controller Chris Jackson,
G7UPN, at one point was able to reset the satellite, but he later determined
that UO-14 had suffered a primary power system failure that was causing the spacecraft
to shut down during some eclipses.
 Operators using handheld transceivers often were able to make QSOs via UO-14. Here ARRL Headquarters staffer Joe Bottiglieri, AA1GW, works UO-14 with a handheld dualband transceiver and the popular Arrow antenna. |
During its active lifetime, UO-14 served
several roles. After some 18 months in orbit as a PACSAT, UO-14 was switched to
non-amateur frequencies for humanitarian use by Volunteers
In Technical Assistance, which used it for messaging into Africa. After the
store-and-forward communications computer proved no longer able to perform that
task, UO-14 was turned back to amateur use as a single-channel FM voice
repeater, the role for which it was best known. UO-14 worked as an "FM bent
pipe repeater satellite" in full duplex mode.
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UO-14 again served a humanitarian role in early 2001 when hams assisting with earthquake relief operations in the Indian State of Gujarat took advantage of the satellite to provide communication from the stricken region.
The beauty of UO-14 was that it required minimal gear to make contacts--typically 5 W and modest antennas would do the trick. Operators with dualband handheld transceivers and "rubber duckie" antennas often could make QSOs via UO-14.
AMSAT-NA has said that its new ECHO
satellite, planned for launch next March 31, will take over the role of the now-defunct
AO-27 and UO-14 low-Earth-orbiting satellites.
| Previous: ARISS Announces Roy Neal, K6DUE, ISS Commemorative Event | Next: Operating 1x1 for the Tour de France |
