Status Report

AMSAT News Service: loss of communication with AO-40 22 Dec 2000

By SpaceRef Editor
December 22, 2000
Filed under ,

AMSAT-NA President Robin Haighton, VE3FRH, provided
ANS with the following ‘President’s Letter’:

To All AMSAT Members,

It is proposed to hold an inquiry into the incident which has resulted
in the loss of communication with AO-40. Although it is hoped that the
loss of communication is a temporary situation, AMSAT believes that
it is in the best interests of our organization to determine all the facts
surrounding this incident and to make sure that a similar situation cannot
happen again either on AO-40 or on a future satellite.

Our primary function at this time is still the recovery of AO-40, but we
are also beginning to lay the plans for this inquiry.

When the P3D project was first developed, a Program Board was
developed to oversee the project and put in place such other committees
as may be necessary during the life of P3D (now AO-40). This Program
Board represents the membership of each of the major organizations
which have contributed to the P3D project (i.e. AMSAT-DL, AMSAT-NA,
AMSAT-UK, DARC, and the ARRL). It is this Program Board that will
meet on your behalf to determine the requirements of the inquiry, such
as the terms of reference and the actual size of the Inquiry Committee
itself.

The Program Board will be responsible to make sure that the inquiry
meets the requirements of the membership and will be responsible for
publicizing the results of the inquiry.

AMSAT-DL will present the Program Board with some initial suggestions
on the scope, size, etc. in early January 2001. The Program Board will
review these within two weeks and make any modifications that they
feel are necessary (during a teleconference) also to be held in January.

It is hoped that the Inquiry Committee will start work shortly thereafter.

Although we do not wish to limit the scope of work, we would like the
Inquiry Committee to report its findings relatively quickly, with this
time to be determined by the Program Board. Any or all the AMSAT
personnel who worked on the P3D project may be asked to assist the
Inquiry Committee.

On a slightly different — but related — topic, in order to make sure that
everyone is up to date with known facts, Peter Guelzow, DB2OS, is
preparing an overall review of the loss of transmission incident, to
show what has actually taken place and the actions that have been
attempted to try and recover AO-40. This is being written in response
to many requests for detailed information and will contain all known
information. Peter, like the rest of us, is a volunteer with a normal
job, but he hopes to have this review out shortly.

Another action that is underway is a review of future projects by
the AMSAT-NA Project Committee. For some time we have been
receiving input for the next generation of satellites and this
information has been passed to the Project Committee for their
review and recommendation. We realize that even when AO-40 is
hopefully recovered, now is also the time to start looking at our next
project(s). The Board of Directors of AMSAT-NA will meet in late
February to receive initial recommendations from the Project
Committee and to determine the next steps.

Wishing you all the very best for the holiday season,

Robin Haighton, VE3FRH

[ANS thanks AMSAT-NA President Robin Haighton, VE3FRH, for
this information]


Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to the
ANS Editors at
ans-editor@amsat.org,
or to ANS Editor Dan James, NN0DJ, at
nn0dj@amsat.org.

SpaceRef staff editor.