Slashdot Mirror
Telstar 4 is Down
An anonymous reader writes "Sometime this morning (Sept. 19) Telstar 4 had a major onboard failure. I just checked a few minutes ago and there are CW carriers up on 11700 MHz V & 12200 MHz H, so the spacecraft would appear to still be in its orbital slot - just no traffic. The Loral Skynet site has no mention of this yet, but supposedly Telstar 8 was already scheduled to replace T4, so they may just speed the process up. This turn of events will no doubt be of some small concern to Intelsat, who recently agreed to purchase most of Loral's US domestic fleet, including T4."
My girlfriend always told me that when I talk tech with fellow tech-heads I make no sense at all.
"It's hard for me to believe it's even English you're speaking. I don't recognize any of the words."
Reading this Slashdot post just made me understand what she means.
It's like a bad sci-fi screenplay!
(Telstar? CW carriers? 11700 MHz V & 12200 MHz H? orbital slot? Intelsat? Loral's US domestic fleet?)
Assuming everyone knows everything you do is a sure sign of the foolish man.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
... is that it has something to do with Isabel.
j/k
The IT section color scheme sucks.
Loral Skynet site has no mention of this yet, but supposedly Telstar 8 was already scheduled to replace T4 Already at the T4? Did I miss the T2?
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
Interested in AI? MACR
Guys, please stop playing with your Wifi devices.
See the results...
{{.sig}}
This is a crisis of earth-shattering proportions for many.
:-)
One of Telstar 4's nicknames in the industry is "nookiesat" -- as it carries several of the leading porn channels in the US.
When was 7 I'd dance to it all around the house in my footie pajamas. This behaviour only stopped recently.
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
Yes, but don't worry ... It'll be back.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Does the internet still work?
Can we still download the latest Windows security patches?
Do we still get stupid invoices from sco.com?
-- Rushdan
Astronomers from Tacoma to Vladivostok have just reported an ionic disturbance in the vicinity of the Van Allen Belt. Scientists are recommending that necessary precautions be taken.
Hope this helps.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
You have many questions, and although the process has altered your consciousness, you remain irrevocably human. Ergo, some of my answers you will understand, and some of them you will not. Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also irrelevant.
Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden to sedulously avoid it, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here.
Or something like that...
breaking something, usually speeds up upgrade process.
In IT people that a lot (especially with the servers)
And with the recent increase in MS security patches this has become more evident. People are scrambling to upgrade/switch to better OS (like OS X, Linux etc)
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
For all of you who keep asking, "What is telstar?" - here's the results of a Google:
h tml
http://roland.lerc.nasa.gov/~dglover/sat/telstar.
--
http://nemilar.net - Not your grandmother's soup kitchen
Telstar 4 is one of the most heavily used TV satellites. We had to move our channels over to Telstar 6 for the time being. (I work for the Erotic Networks) It caries many of the east coast ABC and CBS feeds. I'm sure they were scrambling to find alternate carriers just like we were this morning.
"A communications disruption could mean only one thing . . . invasion."
or
"It's like in chess: First, you strategically position your pieces and when the timing is right you strike. They're using this signal to syncronize their efforts and in 5 hours the countdown will be over"
"Where is my mind?"
"They're using our own satellites against us!"
- Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day
I'm not really a web designer, I just play one on the Internet.
Enjoy the silence while it lasts ...
The person who reported it sounds like someone who points a dish at the bird, but not an uplink operator. If you really have a need to know the status of the satellite, you probably know the number of the Hawley satellite control center.
When I was young, and trying to lock in my C-band dish, I almost allways used T4 as a reference point. Good clear signal, and you ALLWAYS knew what channel you were on. Kinda sad to see the old bird die
Rejoice! That was the satellite that Major League Baseball was using to spy on us.
"0101100101? It's just jibberish. *looks in mirror, gasps* 1010011010@!? AHHHHHH!!"
...The opening sequence to Terminator 4: Rise of the Voting Machines?
Working Link to the news story that spurned this post ;)
why can't they just have some entry-level admin reboot it?
cycle the power, voila, no big deal.
oh, wait...
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I've heard porn was on there, and PBS broadcasts (today's schedule) using Telstars, but is that really vital? I mean, none of the internet is down, and telephone services still work. I understand that PBS is educational, but the vital services in a disaster would be news (only affected if Telstar 4 carried news), telephone, food (I don't think Telstars carry commercial transactions), water (ditto), and shelter (THAT doesn't need a Telstar).
BTW, I just checked w/ New Frontier Media (they provide those porn channels) and the channels have already been rerouted to Telstar 6.
:-)
Obviously the satellite industry has its priorities straight.
Ok, so I'm nitpicking here... but isn't a group a satellites called a constelation?
No sig
This is pulled from one of the links. Distance learning... who needs it anyway!
Telstar 4
77 W (in 2003)
Began service: 11/95
Transponders: 24 C-band @ 36 MHz
16 Ku-band @ 54MHz
Coverage: Continental US, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, and into Canada.
Markets: Robust broadcast and syndication neighborhood anchored by ABC and CBS; host to SNG, data and distance learning applications.
We don't know the nature of those emissions.
I'm pretty sure things like that can mess up electronics though, to the point of causing system faults.
After all, what shielding could possibly protect you from something that was able to reach across space like that?
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Here's a page with information on the television signals carried by Telstar 4:
http://www.lyngsat.com/t4.shtml
The last time a Telstar satelite went out of alignment about 3/4ths of the credit card processing in the US went offline. Many banks and gas stations relay their CC processing through transpoders on one of the Telstar satelites instead of dedicating a phone line on each end of the connection. It looks like T-4 is used by ABC and CBS for network programming. See This for more info.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
But what does Telstar DO? I mean, what are the downlink transmissions that you would try to receive? I've heard that it's famous for porn, and I know PBS uses Telstars (including 4) for broadcasting, but what else is there?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's those pesky Klingons again!
Please stand by.
Quick, call Jeff Goldblum!
He might be able to find the hidden carrier signal the alien fleet uses to coordinate the attack.
Well... now that that's over with, nothing left to do but go get a life, I suppose.
Telstar 4 has mutinied and is orchestrating the robot rebellion against humanity. The Loral Global Alliance faction's Loral SKYNET program has gone too far this time.
Looking at Telstar 4's coverage map, it's clear that SKYNET plans to strike first in an east-west corridor bounded by New Mexico and Ohio; the killing robot machines will move outward until they capture most of Canada, half of Mexico, and all of Hawaii.
Save us, Terminate SKYNET!
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Clearly, the invading aliens are using this satalit to triangulate there position around earth. Now, considering this satalite carries a lot of porn channels, it most certian does effect you.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If the beacons are still up, then it might not be too late. Galaxy 4 went topsy-turvy about 7 years ago and a lot of services, such as paging, TV network feeds, and long distance, went toast. The satellite was forever lost. So at least T4 is still in it's orbital position and the antennas are still pointed at earth. Hmmm... Could it be another case of faulty uploaded software, like what started SOHO into tumbling???
When looking at the Loral Skynet pages, I think that it is amazing to see the footprint of those satellites, like Telstar 12 that covers Europe to north America(Atlanta).
Maybe they went out of business... they've been know for criminal activities...
MoFscker
Here...
Here...
And here...
So, do we have a link? A reference? How can we confirm this? Who posted this? This sort of news item sucks. Very little information and no links to reference the news item.
Well, you could bitch and moan about it, or you could just use Google News and find your own damn references
Telstar 4 is/was a satellite in geosynchronous orbit over the US. The satellite is used for television transmission. Signals are sent up from television facilities, bounced off the bird (nick for a satellite), and then the signal is recieved by cable companies and TV stations for relay to your house.
The main power bus on Telstar 4 died. This means it does not have the power to rebroadcast (bounce) the signals back to earth.
Kinda like the Enterprise losing the warp drive, but still having impulse power to putter around.
These birds cost US$200-300 million to build and US$100-150 million to launch. Failure of this type is a huge loss for Intelsat and a costly transition for the broadcasters.
The companies that used that bird need to switch to other ones. This causes two problems.
1) Antennas - The recievers all need to repoint their antennas at new birds. This is a pain in the ass to do precisely.
2) Bumps - Due to agreements, some companies on Telstar 4 have the right to 'bump' others off the backup birds and take their places. If you get bumped, you are fuxxored.
Make some sense now?
nuclear iraq bioweapon encryption cocaine korea terrorist
Take a look at their "Industry Terms" page = http://www.loralskynet.com/tech_resources/glos_us. asp.html
What's up with the first entry? Also, there's an entry for "hacker".
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Gah, I read this one 5 times and still didnt understand. After reading all the links and doing some googling here it is again in a lower form of techno-geek (or would it be higher? not sure).
T4 is a broadcast Satalite used to transmit the raw station feeds from the central offices (read networks) to local broadcasters (cable, local ABC affiliate etc).
What Data T4 is responcible for:
Robust broadcast and syndication neighborhood anchored by ABC and CBS; host to SNG, data and distance learning applications. (Also hosted is Spice Channel and two other adult viewing stations which are not mentioned on the main site)
Where it effects:
The central portion of North America
The origional poster mentions the Carrier frequencies that the data is normally transfered on. The poster also mentions that there is no data being broadcast, just the main freq.
I have no way of confirming this myself, and dont see anything about it on any of the satalite pages. All they report is that a satalite is up and running (i.e. the Carrier frequency is present, but nothing on the data being transmitted)
As for the information on replacing the old T4 with T8, well T8 is currently handling south america, and the information I could find on google about the sale of the out dated satalites it vague at best.
Who does this effect:
Possably people out in the midwest are not getting any TV on their cable boxes.
mostlikly its effecting the cable companies and local affiliates who need to reroute to another satalite, and the central offices which also need to switch the feeds to other sat feed providers.
In the end nothing is confirmed.
Here are links about telstart from news.google.com: /.
Oh wait...the first link is back to
So it must be true.
Telstar 401 out of serviceJanuary 17, 1997: 1:01 p.m. ET Satellite's failure could cost AT&T several hundred million dollars NEW YORK (CNNfn) -- AT&T said on Friday that it has been unsuccessful in its attempts to re-establish contact with Telstar 401 and has declared the satellite permanently out of service. The satellite's telemetry and communications abruptly stopped early Saturday morning, the company said. The satellite, which began malfunctioning last weekend, was used to transmit network TV programs. The problem has been invisible to TV viewers because AT&T said it immediately restored service for customers whose contracts called for transfer of their transponder service to Telstar 402R, and restored other services as well. In addition to traffic from ABC and other networks, the satellite carried signals from syndicators, resellers and educational networks. An AT&T spokesman said this is the first time AT&T has ever seen a satellite broadcast successfully and then fail completely. On September 25, 1996, AT&T agreed to sell AT&T Skynet Satellite Services to Loral Space & Communications. Skynet consisted of three satellites, one of them more than ten years old. The loss of Telstar 401 significantly reduces the value of Skynet and could cost AT&T several hundred million dollars. Telstar was launched in late 1993 and started serving customers early in 1994. It is highly unusual for a satellite to fail so quickly. The satellite was manufactured by Lockheed Martin. Find this article at: http://money.cnn.com/1997/01/17/technology/att
I called Skynet, and this was their quote:
"Telstar 4 experienced a short circuit of primary its power bus and is not fixable. This satellite is offline permanently."
Some of us get paid to worry about this.
/. post about it. Cut the guy some slack.
If MAE-WEST blew up one day, you'd expect a
nuclear iraq bioweapon encryption cocaine korea terrorist
I used to work for an npr station doing operations stuff, mostly catching shows off network and recording them for rebroadcast and I remember the time that their satellite had problems. actually i don't remember it, that whole time period was this haze of me not sleeping and freaking out about how we were going to get our programing and people calling in to scream at us so it was all sort of a blur. npr switched over to useing some sattelite that canadian broadcasting had space on, since we had helped them out in the past when things went wrong with their network they didn't charge us an arm and a leg. the tv networks that had to switch over had to cough up the real money though.
is that Muzak uses it to broadcast. The elevators have gone quite...
Well, you could bitch and moan about it, or you could just use....
O.K., by that logic, let's just let all of our news sources report on news items without citing sources or references. What would that leave us with eh? Fox news is what. My point is simply that a news article should cite sources and references so we can establish within reason the credibility of the story without having to go poking around in search of references for topical news items. Posting news items without sources is simply shoddy reporting and we should hold the editors to a higher standard, particularly if Slashdot is wanting to sell subscriptions.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
A link to an article might have been nice.
I found a short article that outlines some basic details of what they (Loral) know now and what they're doing to alleviate any problems to the end-user (you).
><));>
Also, the current LASCO movie of the solar corona doesn't show any solar "storms" coming our way in the last few days (they show up as expanding halos all the way around the Sun), although there were several that went off to the side in that period.
Confusingly there is another Telstar records bases in Hoboken in the US.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Evil, evil nerds and geeks! :P
That's the same thing my girlfriend says...
Well, you could bitch and moan about it, or you could just use Google News and find your own damn references
Well shit, then why even bother visiting slashdot at all?
I would, but I already posted to this thread.
So I can still watch Sopranos, Sex and the City, et. al.
http://homeboxoffice.com/
Just click on Satellite Operations.
Pretty cool info.
Well, maybe a bit.
The 'Telstar' the parent refers to is the 1962 pop instrumental piece written by by Joe Meek and performed by the Tornadoes who became the first U.K. band to have a #1 hit in the States, even before the Beatles. 'Telstar' was inspired by the launch of Telstar 1.
Of course, this is way, way before 99.9% of the Slashdot readership were born so I'm not suprised it was missed. Hell, even I was only 1 year old.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
are here.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Which one of you guys hijacked it? We all know that the only people that read Slashdot are hackers and pirates. You've had your fun. Give it back now.
But why is the rum gone?
4 heard there were job openings at new satellite
network. Enough dealing with porn nets, 4 can
now some REAL work.
I don't think that in this case CW has anything to do with Morse code. It's simply an unmodulated signal (only the "carrier") probably being used to troubleshoot. The frequencies mentiones seem like 'normal' Ku-Band down link frequencies, and the poster specified their polarization (Horizontal and Vertical), the telemetry becaon AFAIK are transmitted using circular polarization.
Now we'll have to settle for the Pentium 4 Not So Xtreme and the Pentium 4 Really Quite Mediocre. :(
I ordered the Jenna Jameson day long movie marathon on PPV this morning and had my PVR and my bottle of lotion at the ready... I am SO screwed.... and not in the good way either...! ;)
Polymorphism -- It's what you make of it.
Hells I can vouch for Telstar being down. Of course he's down. It ain't no shame. Me and Telly have been pimp rolling the 718 since his mamma flocked from Compton.
Now I don't think you should be all up in the Kool Aid about him and Loral. Hustlers don't call showdowns, but I'm pitching straight game that Loral and her orbital slot are slamming. But if alls you're saying is that he's down, that's cool...
my blog
. . . to call something that kind of hangs in the sky and circles round and round a "spacecraft?" "Satellite" or "wussy thing that kind of hangs in the sky" might be more accurate terms.
Sort of like how a little buoy with a light on it doesn't qualify as a Coast Guard cutter. Yes, it guards the coast, and yes it's on the sea, but it ain't it.
Upstairs Dog, Downstairs People.
Any old geezers out there remember this?
In the context of communications satellites, be sure to clarify what you mean by "down". It is still in orbit, correct? ;-)
--
The early bird catches the worm. The worm that sleeps late lives to see another day.
I was in the sun looking for T4 for about an hour today before I gave up and called in to find out what happened...(I work for Muzak)
Now I get to work all day tomorrow switching dishes to a different bird. Time to break out the aloe-vera and sunscreen.. its going to be a long week.
So what should we assume about the "PBS X" channel, considering all the other pr0n related channels carried.....
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d Capitalization really works: i helped my uncle jack off a horse
From the Telstar 4 link, I can see that there's a Telstar 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, and 13, but no Telstar 9 in the list. What happened with Telstar 9?
No data, no cry
From a 'technology' standpoint, the loss of T4 is a big deal. More nattering about RIAA, well, does anybody even really care ?
This hasn't improved the programming any. Better luck next time? Amy
I know ABC had some transponder space on Telstar 4. Only reason I know is because a company I use to work for provided services over it. In fact, friends of mine(who still work there) said that next week is a major undertaking of re-pointing satellite dishes at all the ABC affilliates. Sorta sucks...
Now... the worst part is that emergency bandwidth doesn't come cheap, especially if it is up in space. Now... this led me to an interesting idea. Why don't they have "proxy satellites"... Basically... a small satellite that can change orbits and has the ability to simply relay signals to nearby satellites. Granted... Complexity would jump up a bit, but at least it would give people time to migrate there dishes instead of this emergency, the sky is falling. I bet the price tag for such a device would be well under the 80 million that most satellites cost, and I bet you could launch it as a companion device(ie... just in case).
The hell with credit cards. Am I going to get the spice channel tonight?
In Australia, a Telstar is a car. (A Ford 4 door hatchback made in the 80's and early 90's).
I was wondering why they had decided 'down' the 4th one they had.
There is so much junk in orbit I'm surprised we don't lose satellites every day. I would not be surprised if an orbiting nut or bolt or somesuch gave T4 a sound whack. Makes me think of the old Devo song "Space Junk"...
It is official; Skynet now confirms: Telstar 4 is dying.
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered sattellite community when Skynet confirmed that Skynet 4 downlink has dropped yet again, now to ZERO PERCENT of all broadcasts. Coming on the heels of a recent Skynet release which plainly states that Telstar 4 was to be replaced by a newer satellite, Telstar 8. This news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Telstar is collapsing in complete disarray.
You don't need to be a Kreskin [amazingkreskin.com] to predict Telstar 4's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Telstar faces a bleak, orbit decaying future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Telstar 4 because Telstar 4 is dying. Things are looking very bad for Telstar. As many of us are already aware, Telstar 4 continues to lose market share.
Telstar 4 is the most endangered satellite of them all, having lost 100% of its rebroadcast ability. The TVs are bare, static flows like a river of blood. There can no longer be any doubt: Telstar 4 is dying.
All major surveys show that Telstar 4 has steadily declined in quality. Telstar 4 is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Telstar is to survive at all it will be among satellite dilettante dabblers who care not for the One True Satellite: Telstar 8. Telstar 4's orbit continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Telstar 4 is dead.
Note to parent: NEVER use the words "confirms" and "dead" in the same sentence
T4 carries major C-Band backhaul video as well as numerous telephone intercontinental transponders. Usually when a "bird" only sends telemetry but has lost ability to function, it is due to loss of orbital stability. Reminds me of the loss of Anik E1 a number of years ago. Actually, Please see here which documents T4 today "Shut down after a short circuit of its primary power bus" Best Jeff
The paging company my company uses is out. They called me this morning to let me know a satellite problem had taken them offline, and had no ETA for coming back online. We don't do any life-dependant work, but I hate to think of what any hospitals that use them are having to deal with at this point.
I always love reading stuff like this and realizing that in one or two areas of technology, I actually know something some other people don't - see, otherwise, I feel completely inadequate when people start tossing around TCP/IP jargon and such.
;-)
The T4 failure caused us only to have to re-point our WSI weather data antenna (that's the service we use that downloads all the pretty satellite pictures and weather radar the meteoroligist uses on the air) and move our UPN network backup dish. We also lost a couple of syndication feeds (we record a lot of the non-net programming you see ahead of time from satellite and play it back at it's correct time) - but I think they were things like "People's Court" and "Ricky Lake" so it's no great loss to have to run the backup shows
Other than that, we didn't really suffer much. There's not a ton we use on old T4 anyway, most of our critical stuff moved over to T5, T6, T7, AMC-3 and other newer birds a while ago.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT= 104&STORY=/www/story/09-19-2003/0002020695&EDA TE=
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Loral Skynet, a subsidiary of
NEW YORK, Sept. 19
Loral Space & Communications (OTC Bulletin Board: LRLSQ), today said that its
Telstar 4 satellite experienced a short circuit of its primary power bus today
at 8:56 am EDT, causing the satellite to cease operations. Loral Skynet
immediately made capacity available to most Telstar 4 customers, many of whom
have already had their services restored on Loral's Telstar 5 and Telstar 6
satellites.
Loral Skynet and Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the satellite, are
working to determine the cause of the problem and to restore service on the
satellite, if possible. The satellite is insured for $141 million.
Telstar 8, currently under construction at Space Systems/Loral, will
replace Telstar 4, as planned, at 89 degrees West in mid-2004.
Telstar 4 coverage includes the continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto
Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, and southern Canada. Telstar 4 was launched in
September 1995.
(Where I work, T4 is backup for CBS, and has several data channels for our Weather Graphics System - that required a retune to T5. BTW, there is *always* a "backup/replacement" satellite in the pipeline to replace existing satellites)
T4 used to carry a lot of the backhaul feeds for the networks. Simpsons, Everybody loves Raymond, etc. Its dropped off recently due to networks switching to digital feeds, but it still used to be the only way to watch Simpsons at 7am saturday morning...
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Actually, people at Loral have been wanting T4 to die for a long time. It's lived quite a few years past it's life expectancy and as long as it was up there, no one was ordering the replacement... And if you've been watching Loral's stock and business news you'll see that they really need new orders. Not that it matters much to me as a not so recently laid off exemployee, but I'm sure someone is pleased..
I'm not a satellite expert or anything but one of the things that keeps costs down on these satellites is that they can't fly around. It's not practical for cost to build a satellite that can zip around all of space...
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
I think that's the first time we've Slashdotted a satellite.
I, for one, welcome our alien overlords!
and they just asked me where Sara Conner is at.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The weird thing is... your piece really rings a bell in my head. The tone and style sound just like sci-fi stories I've read, if only I could think of where. Something about calling (not emailing) the wife to say he's going to be home late especially sounds familiar.
Anybody have a clue who Waffle Iron is spoofing? Asimov? Sagan? Clarke?
I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
So what should we assume about the "PBS X" channel, considering all the other pr0n related channels carried....
You're obviously referring to the Pubic Broadcasting Service.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
can be found here.
How thick the plexiglass was
The overpressure rating of the plexiglass
What kind of gun (sorry, weapon) McMurray was carrying, his preferred load, and it's effects on the human body at a range of 10 yards.
...Are you ill?
T&K.
Political language
Waiting to die? It was launched in '95 and was expected to complete 12 years service. http://www.cyberstar.com/fleet/telstar4/t4ov_us.as p
"Began service: 11/95"
http://www.cyberstar.com/fleet/telstar4/tech_doc4. pdf
"Telstar 4 is a three-axis-stabilized hybrid satellite capable of providing both C-band and Ku-band communications coverage to CONUS, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico/U.S. Virgin Islands for 12 years."
That means that if it survived to 2007, it made it's mission. As far as I can tell, it's stopped short...
So I'm a smart-arse ;-)
- Paul
At the risk of losing karma for being "offtopic" I want to say thanks for posting it. Like a lot of people I didn't know much about satellites and I think my knowledge is up by about 400 - 500% now.
As to the question "what difference does it make to me?" - that is simply another way of asking "who cares if XXXX runs Linux" - the point is we are geeks, we care about technical knowledge and now we have some more.
According to the site referenced in the posting, Telstar 8 is intended to serve an entirely different region. While T4 is oriented at North America, T8 is (according to the site) planned to service South America.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Wowzers!
At least, I think it was him. It's a short story about comm sats which gradually become self-aware. As our information passes through them, they learn from it, helped by other sats which are already "alive" and shepherding them along.
When we think they break down and go offline, it's actually the sat just getting bored and/or frustrated with humanity. They only talk amongst themselves after that point...
...trying to decide how best to help us, and exactly what/how that "help" should mean...
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)