Author: Riga SLR
team

A possible CHEFsat first pass from Riga

Riga May 28/2018

Dear colleagues:

Since early last week we had done 10 passes of CHEFsat

In all passes the satellite is decently bright in our visual
channel but we never got returns, even when opening the gate lead and gate width
wider than the value used for dead satellites as Topex, OICETS or Adeos2 with CPF's having
substantial range biases.

On the same nights and using the normal configuration, we
tracked SNET and Technosat without any problem.

Last night, May 27 at 23:02
UTC we got 5 possible returns.

IF they are REALLY returns, the timebias for the CPF release
6451 is ~+67 ms.

Any suggestion why we dont get returns?

Does the CHEFsat phase from Riga
(lat 56N) could block the LRR view?

Or is the satellite now on the sun soak mode as mentioned on
the ILRS application?

(https://ilrs.cddis.eosdis.nasa.gov/docs/2018/ilrsmsr_1604_CHEFSat_v3.pdf)

We will keep calm and continue tracking!

The Riga team