Spaceway 2 at 99 Degrees Update?

[OneBigJedi]

Sats Now in Stable Orbit

LyngSat now shows the bird in a stable orbit at 99.18 degrees. I have not seen any transponders turned on yet. I guess we will have to wait for a week or so.

 

[charper1]

I might be wrong but I read a while back that it was going to be under heavy testing BEFORE the hand-off to DirecTV. This was to be done out of the "parked slot". DirecTV will take control sometime after it is parked and will begin their own testing. This is a bit more than normal due to something that may have happened to Spaceway 1.

 

[tibber]

Looking at the NORAD data, I tried to figure out how long S1 was parked before Boeing turned it over to D*, but wasn't quite sure. It may have been as long as 4 months, but as Charper1 has said, I too read that S1 had problems. And S1 was the first of the family--it may have had a longer testing cycle than S2 will have.

I'm guessing D* will have it mid march so they can test before the new LIL's launch in April--but that is purely speculation on my part.

Cheers,
Tom

 

[GeorgeLV]

All of those birds and E* is still taking their lunch in HD.

It doesn't matter how many satellites you have in the sky when you are only allowed to broadcast on the transponders licensed to you. Echostar has more Ku-band licenses than DirecTV. When DirecTV 10 and 11 are up the situation ought to reverse for a period as DirecTV can finally make use of the Ka-band licenses for national programming.

 

[herdfan]

I might be wrong but I read a while back that it was going to be under heavy testing BEFORE the hand-off to DirecTV.

As part of the deal to let D* have the Spaceways as part of the purchase from Hughes, HNS gets 30 days of testing on the bird before D* gets to use it. Now if this is before or after Boeing hand-off, I don't know.

 

[OneBigJedi]

Any Update

Does anyone have an update on Spaceway 2? I notice that they seem to be having trouble with parking it in a stable orbit. And, if anyone knows, when are they going to be turning on a transponder so you can see your signal strength.


Thanks!

 

[raoul5788]

Does anyone have an update on Spaceway 2? I notice that they seem to be having trouble with parking it in a stable orbit. And, if anyone knows, when are they going to be turning on a transponder so you can see your signal strength.


Thanks!

It has been in a stable orbit for awhile now. When the testing is done, then you will see it lit up. Who knows how much longer that will be.

 

[OneBigJedi]

lyngsat shows them all over the place

I have been checking Lyngsat daily, and they show them anywhere from 99.13 to 99.20. That tells me they are flying that bird like an airplane.

http://www.lyngsat.com/tracker/space2.html

 

[raoul5788]

I have been checking Lyngsat daily, and they show them anywhere from 99.13 to 99.20. That tells me they are flying that bird like an airplane.

http://www.lyngsat.com/tracker/space2.html

If you check SW1 you will see variations in it's orbit, also. It changes from 102.77 to 102.8.
I haven't seen SW2 off more than .03 lately.