IS, Telkom and the various suppliers of satellite services will be on full standby during the expected spring equinox solar activity period. We expect short outages of between four and eight minutes on each of the satellites. As a result, IS users can expect degraded service during these times.
Outage times:
10 September 45 Meg 14:29 34 Megs 15:43
11 September 45 Meg 14:28 34 Megs 15:45
12 September 45 Meg 14:28 34 Megs 15:46
13 September 45 Meg 14:27
14 September 45 Meg 14:28
Please also be aware of the fact that we could experience errors on these lines for up to 45 minutes on either side of the outage window.
Solar activity
A Sun outage has a similar effect to a rain fade. The high energy level and broadband nature of solar energy can overpower a satellite`s downlink signal - effectively drowning out a reception signal with noise. Due to the angle of the sun in relationship to the satellite, a sun outage can result in both degraded reception performance, and possibly circuit outage (typically 20% of the total predicted sun outage duration period.)
Many factors influence the robustness of a reception circuit, hence the difficulty in predicting outage duration.
At certain times of year, approximately one month either side of the spring and autumn equinoxes, there may be a conjunction of solar and satellite positions. Depending upon the size of the earth station, such an event can lead to serious impairment of the space-earth link. The times at which these outages may occur have been predicted for each NSS spacecraft.
If you have any questions, please call the IS Support Desk on (011) 283-5500.
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