[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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