Below is an excerpt from a Spaceviews story published early on March 18 UTC at this URL: http://www.spaceviews.com/2000/03/17c.html "While it operates the satellites for at least the short term, Morotola [sic] will be drafting a plan deorbit the constellation of 66 operational satellites as well as several on-orbit spares, beginning within the next two weeks. "Motorola will command the spacecraft to fire their thrusters to gradually lower their orbits, then allow atmospheric drag to take over, lowering the spacecraft into the atmosphere where they would harmlessly burn up. "It would take up to nine months to rewrite software and fire the thrusters for the initial orbit-lowering maneuver, and up to two years until all the satellites have been deorbited." Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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