[time-nuts] Missing GPS satellites
jimlux
jimlux at earthlink.net
Fri Mar 26 12:22:22 UTC 2010
Jeffrey Pawlan wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Mar 2010, Magnus Danielson wrote:
>
>> Dear Raj,
>> Oh, sorry, needed a few extra. Wanted to recover the rubidiums and put
>> some on Ebay.
>
>
>
>
> I gave a lecture about antennas for operation on 1296MHz last week and
> mentioned that my vacuum tube power abplifier was damaged by a gassy
> tube. I want to replace it with a solid state amp. One of the engineers
> present suggested that I find a GPS satellite on the surplus market and
> pull the the power amplifier out of it.
>
> He obviously did not know that satellites , even spares, do not show up
> on the surplus market.
>
Things like that DO show up as surplus but I wouldn't call it a market.
When we excess things at JPL (and that includes spare flight hardware),
it goes on a list, and other NASA centers, and then gov't agencies, and
then universities/colleges/educational institutions get a crack at it.
Finally, it will get scrapped.
There is also the ITAR and export controls issue. (an interesting
question I'll have to ask... if you have a rad hard widget for a
spacecraft (clearly ITAR), and you surplus it in a way that makes it
impossible to know it's Class S, is it still controlled..)
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