Delfi-C3 status update

The team behind the Amateur Radio satellite Delfi-C3 have issued a further status udate.

1. Delfi-C3 is now in orbit for over a week, and continues to perform well.

2. We are aware of the transmitter distortion and drop outs occurring. These two are related, and are not related to the transmitter itself, but are the result of a power / attitude issue combined with the way our Electrical Power System works.

Thanks to all your reports we now have a clear view of what is happening, and are in the process of taking corrective actions while the s/c is over our groundstation. We are taking these actions step by step so the phenomenon will continue to occur over the coming days. Your reports on this phenomenon are welcome.

3. We are still not sure which TLE's correspond to Delfi-C3, so it is indeed kind of like a lottery hi:) Time will tell, since the s/c will drift further apart over time, so that we can discriminate better between the individual satellites. During the last days, our groundstation has been using object #32789 with good results.

4. There have been a number of orbits where the spacecraft entered "emergency mode". Up till now, every eclipse (reset) has cleared these issues. We think we have an understanding of what causes this. If you hear the satellite in emergency mode, your reports are appreciated, either on the BB or at missioncontrol@delfic3.nl

5. Today we tried listening to the satellite using handheld receivers and Arrow antennas, on the groundstation roof. Delfi-C3 was nice and strong during this overhead pass, we had a tremendous amount of fun as you can see from the photos at http://www.delfic3.nl/photoblog/

It was a magnificent feeling to be staring into the blue sky knowing that our spacecraft was somewhere up high.

6. Up till now we have received 70000+ AX.25 telemetry frames from the satellite on our servers, thank you all for listening and submitting telemetry!

73 on behalf of the Delfi-C3 team
Wouter Jan Ubbels PE4WJ