Orbital Focus - International Spaceflight Facts and Figures
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Iran


Tyneside, UK
2024 Mar 29
Friday, Day 89

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End of Life?

What was assumed to be the last observation of Omid is one published on AmSat's Bulletin Board by Armando Mercado of Michigan. He heard three bursts of Omid's Mode 3 signal ending about 16:46 UTC on February 10. None of the European ground stations was monitoring the subsequent pass, 10-15 minutes later. The next observation attempt from the UK was at 18:25 UTC when Omid's signal failed to manifest itself.

Between 16:46 and 18:25, Omid made a single, low elevation pass as seen from Iran. When Omid was tracked from the UK on the previous cicuit at 15:25 UTC, the received signal strength was noted to be weaker than it had been on previous days.

An assumption that Omid ran out of power on February 10 was premature. It was tracked from several locations around the world at various times on Febuary 17. Final reports came in on February 19 and 20, the observations indicated that Omid was about at the end of its active life.

It was not until April, and Omid's re-entry that Iran announced the mission was ended. There was no acknowledgement that its systems had died in February.

According to Spacetrack, re-entry occurred 2009 April 25.
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