Friday Fun Fact – 8th May 2026

The oldest satellite that is still readily transmitting today is AMSAT-OSCAR 7, otherwise known as AO-7. It is a amateur radio satellite, constructed in the 1970’s by AMSAT. It was launched into Low Earth Orbit back on November 15, 1974, and remained operational until a battery failure in 1981.

After 21 years of silence, the sattelite’s signal was picked up again on June 21, 2002. It was then learnt that during that time, it was actually used briefly for the anti-communist opposition in Poland, during the time of Martial Law, in 1982.

AMSAT reported in 2015, that the satellite was only receiving power from it’s solar panels, as a short circuit in the battery had caused the initial outage. When this later became an open circuit, due to time, it now functions only on direct solar light.

AO-7 has a mass of 28.6KG, and was placed into a 1,444km (Pe), x 1459km (Ap) Orbit. It is shaped as an octagonal prism, 36cm tall, and 42.4cm in diameter. It has a single circularly polarized, canted turnstile VHF / UHF antenna system. Four radio masts are mounted 90 degree intervals on the base of the satellite and two experimental repeater systems provided store-and-forward for morse code and teletype messages.