Skipper, a satellite that Utah State University and Russian scientists built and monitored, has stopped communicating.
The Skipper Flight Experiment was fired into space Dec. 27, 1995, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It was supposed to skip through layers of the atmosphere as it orbited Earth.However, after the 12th orbit, "no Skipper transmissions have been received," said Bruce Peterson, Skipper program manager at the university's Space Dynamics Laboratory. The satellite is still orbiting and Air Force officials are tracking it.
"The problems appear to be with the photovoltaic panels charging the nickel-cadmium battery system," he added. In other words, the solar panels may have malfunctioned, perhaps by not unfolding properly, so they can't recharge the satellite's batteries.