Satellite Out of Control

[MorningSong]

Looky look what I found!

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/...est=latestnews

Intense Solar Storm Spins Satellite Out of Control

An adrift Intelsat satellite that stopped communicating with its ground controllers last month remains out of control and has begun moving eastward along the geostationary arc, raising the threat of interference with other satellites in its path, Intelsat and other industry officials said.

In what industry officials called an unprecedented event, Intelsat's Galaxy 15 communications satellite has remained fully "on," with its C-band telecommunications payload still functioning even as it has left its assigned orbital slot of 133 degrees west longitude 36,000 kilometers over the equator.

Galaxy 15 stopped responding to ground controllers on April 5. The satellite's manufacturer, Orbital Sciences Corp. of Virginia, has said an intense solar storm in early April may be to blame. It was launched into space in 2005.

The first satellite likely to face signal interference problems from the adrift Galaxy 15 is the AMC-11 C-band satellite owned by SES of Luxembourg and stationed at 131 degrees west, just two degrees away from Galaxy 15's starting position.

Wow! This could lead to a massive chain-reaction satellite pile-up crash!

After it leaves the vicinity of AMC-11, Galaxy 15 is expected to approach Intelsat's Galaxy 13 satellite, at 127 degrees west, around July 13. On July 30, it will enter into the Galaxy 14 satellite's orbital territory at 125 degrees west before heading toward Galaxy 18 at 123 degrees in mid-August.

And the only thing the manufactures/owners are worried about is continuing communications via other channels!

Young said that both SES and Intelsat are fortunate in this case because their two satellites' customers are mainly media companies using fairly large antennas to communicate with the satellites. During the period of maximum danger for AMC-11, SES expects to be able to reroute customer signals to SES-operated teleports with still-larger antennas to maintain communications links.

Well, I guess it is important to maintain communication signals - keeps the world connected, but what goes up must also come down eventually.

[Swanny]

Posted by MorningSong (here)

Wow! This could lead to a massive chain-reaction satellite pile-up crash!

Excellent

[stardustaquarion]

The falling of the satelite may indicate saturation of gamma rays, that is no good news.

From space weather "AURORAS INVADE THE USA: A high-speed solar wind stream hit Earth's magnetic field on May 2nd, sparking a geomagnetic storm that lasted more than 15 hours. Red auroras spilled across the Canadian border and were spotted in several US states. Joseph Shaw sends this picture from Bozeman, Montana:"



http://www.spaceweather.com/