O(R)bituary

source: Technion IIT FOCUS http://www.focus.technion.ac.il/May10/newsStory11.htm

“The remarkably successful Gurwin-TechSat mission is complete,” announced Prof. Ehud Behar, director of Technion’s Asher Space Research Institute (ASRI), in April 2010. The Gurwin TechSat II satellite was designed, built, and operated for more than a decade by ASRI: Prof. Haim Eshed conceived the mission, which was supported during the directorships of Prof. Giora Shaviv and Prof. Moshe Guelman. The cube-shaped microsatellite weighing 48 kilograms was launched on July 10, 1998, and remained operational for more than 11 years - a world record for the longest university satellite mission and by far outliving its original predicted lifespan. Its principal tasks were the implementation of several on-board scientific and technological experiments - all performed successfully - and the provision of store-and-forward services to the global radio amateur community. Recently, and as anticipated by ASRI engineers, TechSat’s steadily deteriorating solar panels reached the point where they could no longer support the nominal performance of the satellite systems, Behar explained.