SuitSat

Suitsat or Radioskaf (Russian Радиоскаф ) is a satellite, the UTC has been suspended by the International Space Station on 3 February 2006. He was assigned OSCAR number 54; since the AMSAT was instrumental in the planning, is the complete OSCAR ID: AMSAT- OSCAR -54 (short: AO -54).

This is an old Russian " Orlan -M" space suit with blue stripes, which was equipped with three extra batteries, a transmitter, sensors and a handle. The suit came on 16 September 2001, together with the Pirs airlock to the space station and was used in three EVAs ( in January 2002 by Juri Onufrienko, in August 2002 by Valery Korzun and 2003 by Michael Foale ).

The parts required for the conversion have been associated with the transport spaceship Progress M -54 to the station and installed by the astronauts.

Functioning of the mission

Suitsat 12 was exposed during the second outboard activity of the ISS Expedition at 23:03 UTC on February 3, 2006. The two astronauts took the spacesuit into space and Valery Tokarev disgusted him with the attached waist high handle. In this case, a certain direction had to be kept. The preceding exit, a similar procedure was used to remove the floating potential meter sample of the station.

The satellite should be about six weeks orbiting the Earth before it burns up in the atmosphere. It has been estimated that Suitsat will work up to four days. The power is supplied from the existing batteries in the space suit, supported by some more in the added components. In order to extend their service life, the heating of the space suit is turned off.

The converted space suit sends as an amateur radio satellite radio signal on the frequency 145.990 MHz. First, an identifier is sent in English: "This is Suitsat -1, RS0RS " followed by greetings in five different languages ​​and telemetry data. This information is transmitted in English. For this, a speech synthesizer is installed. At the end of each transfer a picture via Slow Scan Television is transmitted. About the content is not yet known. There are on the website of the project competition for the decryption of the image.

The last confirmed receiving the signal from Suitsat -1 on February 18, 2006 at 06:36 UTC clock. Thus worked Suitsat - 1 14 days, 7 hours and 34 minutes in orbit.

Trajectory

An interesting aspect of the mission is the trajectory of the old spacesuit. Suitsat was launched by the Russian Pirs airlock out. This indicates to the ground. The space suit was started here in the direction of flight to the rear. It is assumed that the initial speed of up to 60 cm / s amount. The spacesuit has up to a distance of about 300 m away from the station, and has entered into a lower orbit, before he slowly approached the ISS. He flew just below the space station along and overtook them. Upon further pivoting into the new orbit of the space suit took up speed and moved away in the direction of flight of the station. After a mission in orbit Suitsat had a distance of 8 km, after a day, this distance has increased to at least 80 km. A viewer of the earth which corresponds to a distance of approximately 10 s

In the further orbit Earth the space suit brakes stronger and moving further and further toward Earth. By the lower orbit simultaneously increases the speed at which it moves away from the station.

All other starting directions may pose a threat to the International Space Station. A start directly toward Earth or opposite would make the suit to a satellite station. The reason for this is that the rotational speed of the space suit around the earth that would remain the same as the station, since the initial vector is perpendicular to the direction of rotation of the space station.

A start in the flight direction would produce a slower and higher orbit. Since Suitsat is stronger than the space station braked and one devices in deeper, faster orbits, both paths would cross many times.

Downlink sequence

To increase the life of Suitsat -1, an interval of 30 s was inserted between each voice message.

The sequence has the sequence

Followed by a 30 - second pause. Then the sequence starts again.

The international message consists of