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Intelsat Loses Another Satellite
Alarash writes "Intelsat reported a few days ago that its IS-804 Satellite is lost in space. According to the press release, the '[...] satellite experienced a sudden and unexpected electrical power system anomaly on January 14, 2005, at approximately 5:32 p.m. EST that caused the total loss of the spacecraft.' The satellite was in charge of the South Pacific's media delivery. As a reminder, Intelsat-7, another satellite from Intelsat, got lost a couple of months ago."
This seems too consistent to be a random failure. Wasn't there some sort of a mystery as to what caused the last one? I propose that the satellites are slowly being hijacked and will soon be used against us, a la Independence Day! They'll collectively broadcast crappy reality shows to every corner of the world and none of us would be able to stop them! AHH! AHHHH!
A blog like any other.
Welcome our new satellite-eating overlords.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Could it be that Intelsat-7 found something interesting while being AWOL and called his friend to come and see it, too ?
Crivens! I kicked meself in me own heid!
Damn it, I told you not to post a link to one of the satellites on /. again! Do you hear me?!
*puts on tin foil hat* /.er living in the hills with a tin foil hat on*
I'm safe, right?
RIGHT?!
Run for the hills! AAHH!
*becomes another insane
I can only think of ONE group that has both the motive and means to cut off our communications and that is
Or even Cyrixsat... altough that would have probably overheated long before now :)
I'd bet on 1 or 2, 3 is an outside possibility, and 4 the result of eating cold pizza for breakfast. It's worth noting that (as near as I can tell from SpaceWeather.com, there were no solar flares when the second satellite was lost. So if the satellite was lost to a design flaw, at least it's not due to poor protection from solar flares.
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
1) Solar Flux
2) Those darn Russians
3) Sensor installed upside down
4) Kids with laser pointers
5) Meteorite
6) Tax purposes
7) Unfriendly UFO
8) Overheating
9) Autodestruct after two-weeks of reruns
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Do I have to do everything around here?
Just a moment while I get my old PowerBook so I can upload the virus to the alien ship.
Bastards keep trying to take them over so they can communicate around the Earth (they traveled like 6 million light-years to get here and they didn't know the Earth was round?).
Does this affect my broadband connection? Noooo. I don't even know why I bother...
It's those damn SPECTRE chappies again!
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
>Could be the Chinese doing live tests of their satellite killers on a target that won't cause an immediate war if they were detected.
2005.. year when bush went to war with china, in search of mystery satelite killing devices
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
"To lose one satellite may be regarded as a misfortune... to lose both seems like carelessness".
Since you don't tell what goup it is, I'll have to guess. The fact that you post as AC and finally decided not to post it anyway strongly suggests you actually meant
Yes, that makes sense. After all, the slashdot crowd is well known of killing web servers (the so-called slashdot effect). They use a site tarned as "news for nerds, stuff that matters" to efficiently communicate the targeted servers for the DDoS attacks. It's only a logical next step from killing websites to killing satellites. Therefore everyone on slashdot is suspect. Oh, wait
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
>> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"
I would prefer goatse and tubgirl compared to the current craptastic TV shows on nowadays...
Danger, Danger IS-804!
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
S P E C T R E
That was classic intercourse!
From Wikipedia: Intelsat maintains it headquarters in Bermuda
Bermuda? And then anyone wonders that their satellites disappear?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
...You Only Live Twice. remember, that huge space cucumber eating US and CCCP space ships? That's what it was!
Bzzt. C.H.A.O.S.
probably just to eek out as much money as possible.
Intelsat exec: This is how much it will cost - take it or leave it.
Asian sat bandwidth buyer: Eeek!
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
They're just trying to prove that the private sector can do what NASA does for less money. This was just proof-of-concept. For the full demo they'll slam another one into a planet.
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
"Metal whiskers", vacuum deposition, etc. are well recognized issues in satellite construction. After a few thousand birds at many millions a pop the industry is quite savvy about avoiding these.
The impending EU ban on lead in consumer products has no effect on the satellite industry (they're exempt; Li'l Jr. is unlikely to be teething on Intelsat 9008b and most of it's components aren't off-the-shelf but specialized radiation-hardened product runs).
But thank you for reading the previous /. story on this and now trendily applying it to everything trying to sound knowledgable.
"My code won't compile" " Metal whiskers! "
"My candidate lost!" " Metal whiskers! "
"Erectile dysfuntion" (all together now) " Metal whiskers! "
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
No conspiracy, it was terrorists.
The Department of Homeland Security is currently seeking information on two men with "strange accents" who recently purchased a laser pointer from a local Office Depot.
The two men were overheard discussing which laser pointers were the most powerful and could "shoot the farthest." The two also paid cash for the laser pointer, leaving no paper trail.
This follows disturbing recent events in which terrorists on the ground tried to down commercial aircraft by blinding the pilots with similar laser pointers.