SSETI Express report from G3VZV now back in England

I apologise for the lack of reports from the launch team over the past few hours, but everything has been somewhat hectic with launch campaign team members trying to leave Plesetsk and get back to the Mission Control centre in Aalborg.

The following text, as already reported by David G0MRF, is the official ESA statement issued earlier today:

"Yesterday at 22:20 CEST SSETI Express went into a safe mode due to an under-voltage caused by battery charging problems. The operations team is working actively to resume nominal operations of the satellite and is receiving tremendous help in the process from the amateur radio community. At the time of the anomaly many mission milestones had already successfully been met."

It seems that no reliable reports of any signals have been received and the teams are reviewing all the telemetry already received to fully understand what is happening on board. Initial review suggests that there is a significant chance that the power supply problem may correct itself.

As the statement above makes clear, ESA and the SSETI Association greatly value the input that we are providing and would ask amateurs around the world to continue to check for signals on 437.250MHz at the appropriate pass
times. These signals may be short bursts of 9k6 data every 18 secs or bursts of pulse telemetry every 30 secs. Please understand that the pulse beacon decoder can produce spurious results on plain noise if over driven!

However if you hear anything that matches the above detail please email details to missioncontrol@sseti.org

We will report any further information as it becomes available.

Thank you for your ongoing support to the SSETI team during this difficult period

73

Graham - almost home!

G3VZV

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