The UO-14 Amateur Radio satellite has been declared officially dead after nearly 14 years in orbit, the Mission Control Centre at the Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) Center for Satellite Engineering Research reported November 11. AMSAT-UK Chairman Martin Sweeting, G3YJO, said one of the NiCad battery cells became exhausted, which caused UO-14’s transmitter to shut down due to undervoltage.
The popular and heavily used FM satellite quit working in August. Ground controller Chris Jackson, G7UPN, was able to reset the satellite at one time, but he later determined that UO-14 had suffered a primary power system failure.
Launched in 1990, UoSAT-OSCAR-14 pioneered the PACSAT communication concept as the first 9.6 kbps Amateur Radio data communications satellite. It became best known in recent years as an FM “easy sat” repeater. UO-14 completed over 72,000 orbits.
The loss of UO-14 leaves amateurs with SO-41 and SO-50 as the only two LEO FM voice satellites now in operation, although the planned 2004 launches of the OSCAR-ECHO and VUSAT could help fill in the void. ECHO is planned for launch next March 31.