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Laboratory for Advanced Space Systems at Illinois

CAPSat Status 10/12 pm

Following a trouble-free, on-time deployment, CAPSat is now charging her batteries during orbital daylight. CAPSat has been in  its deployer since delivery in April, slowly discharging its batteries awaiting release in orbit. By Thursday, it should be charged enough to begin operations if all else goes well. 


In the meantime, we have been conducting operations rehearsals with the ground station team and uncovered a significant issue somewhere in the chain from the pre-amp forward towards the antenna. Last night, we had extremely high winds and thunderstorms in the area which may be responsible for the fault. The equipment is on the roof of our Electrical and Computer Engineering Building and we won’t be able to get access until 8am tomorrow morning. We’ll report on the troubleshooting as soon as we know something.