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Intelsat-7 Lost In Space

Posted by timothy on from the treadstone-now-officially-down dept.

freitasm writes "The Intelsat-7 was reported lost today. The satellite covered the continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, Central America, and parts of South America. It was used to provide digital programming in the Cable Zone, direct-to-user programming, and Internet and data applications to North/Central/South America. The company is already working on the launch of Intelsat-8, scheduled for 17 December."

6 of 214 comments (clear)

  1. Corporate Espionage? by HFShadow · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "According to the agreement, the total loss of the IA-7 satellite would give the purchasers the right not to consummate the acquisition of Intelsat"

    Maybe they decided they didn't want the company after all, and it was cheaper to take out a satellite somehow then to break the contract? :)

    1. Re:Corporate Espionage? by WateryGrave · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This was my first thought as well. Given that they just *happen* to have a replacement going up in 2 weeks and then to experience an "anomaly" to stop the deal from consumating seems a bit suspicious. If either of these companies has stockholders, we may hear more in the future.

  2. What does this mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From the post, "It was used to provide digital programming in the Cable Zone, direct-to-user programming, and Internet and data applications to North/Central/South America." So what's the actual effect of this? Is their service loss? Or is there enough redundancy to cover?

  3. What do you do? by FireFury03 · · Score: 5, Interesting


    What exactly do you do if you're running satellite services and the satellite dies? As far as I can see, you either have to get a replacement up pretty damned quickly or you have to go reposition everyone's dishes so you can use another sat. Or are there already other satellites close enough to be able to use without moving dishes?

    (How close do sats have to be if you want to avoid moving dishes?)

    I imagine losing a satellite would be quite a big deal for satellite TV companies, etc who have all their services routed through a single satellite - talk about all your eggs in one basket.

    --
    http://blog.nexusuk.org
  4. "Lost" ? by Exaton · · Score: 4, Interesting

    OK, so I only glanced at TFA, and I realise that Intelsat has to replace the lost functionality as quickly as they can... But I can't help being slightly suspicious about the timing with the launch of Intelsat-8...

    I mean, do satellite-launching companies have any obligations to bring an old satellite down cleanly and safely to avoid the accumulation of space junk ? If so, how much would such an operation cost ?

    Undoubtedly looks like I'm speaking from under a tin foil hat here, but I wonder how long in advance, before the "loss", the launch of Intelsat-8 had been planned for...

    1. Re:"Lost" ? by DougWebb · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I did an internship with GE Astrospace about 14 years ago, and the project I worked on was developing an accurate fuel gauge for satellites.

      They store fuel in spherical tanks which are pressurized with helium (to push the fuel against the sides), and which have ribs inside which guide the fuel towards the nozzle. You can't put any kind of mechanical device in there to measure how much fuel is left, and they definitely avoid having anything electronic in there.

      As a result, their only way of estimating how much fuel is remaining is to keep careful records of how long each jet burns during station-keeping, and an estimate of how much fuel is used for each burn. This estimate becomes less and less accurate over the life of the satellite, due to the measurement errors adding up and degredation in the jet performance.

      I was told that by the 'end' of a satellite's lifetime, they can still have enough fuel to last another year. Or they may be out of fuel. Either way, the company has to get the replacement up there before the old satellite runs out, which is an expensive and lengthy process. Most satellites get replaced when they still have 1-2 years of life left in them, which is a huge waste of resources. (Many millions of dollars.)

      Anyway, by the end of my internship, we were able to demonstrate a method of directly measuring the amount of fuel in the tanks at any point during the satellite's lifetime, with a much lower error than the record keeping approach. This would allow the satellite to be left in service much closer to it's true end of life. I don't know if the process ever got out of the experimental stage though; not long after I left, GE Astrospace was sold off to another company, and I'm pretty sure the engineering department got gutted.