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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."
maybe someone doesn't want communications to happen. i think a powerful enough radio beam could fry the satellite. ideas?
could this be a test bed for the newest extortion?? "give us the money or your satellite gets it"
Suchetha
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
... but still space-related:
;-)
New Titan panorama from Huygens! Complete with a worryingly Earth-like 'coastline' - I don't think anyone's decided if the dark areas actually contain any liquid or not, but still utterly intriguing.
Oh, and now back to our scheduled broadcast. Satellite losses, not good. Big investment and all that, and long lead-time to launching replacements. Whatever!
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Is it because of increased Solar activity? Can the real cause be ever discovered? If it's because of the Sun, can we have protective magnetic fields (akin to Earth's own) generated around our space vehicles in emergency? Like - if we ever go to Mars won't it be better to have active shielding instead of thick lead plating? (I know nothing)
Hmmm, curious. I'm assuming that this is NOT the same as the Japanese JCSAT-1B, operated by JSAT (a Japanese company). It has gone "out" as of today. Latest news is that a thruster broke down and it changed directions a bit. All communication channels are currently out cold. FYI, JCSAT-1B was built by Boeing. 3 satellites going out in just a couple months? Makes you think, no?
For those of us who moved out of our parent's basement, it's a far too-well known phenomenon.
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
So let me get this straight. Their satellite fries and they just transfer everyone over to unused bandwidth on their other satellites. Then they declare a $73 million dollar loss on their taxes. Does this fall into fiscal 2004 or 2005?
The Sun puts out 1368 W/m^2 at Earth's orbit, so I don't think your hypothetical laser would even be noticed.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Could it have been the tin-whiskers phenomena? I could imagine a tin-whisker growing out, shorting across two critical circuits and there you have it, one dark satellite.
I got asked by a customer recently how come satellites can stay up there for 20+ years without failure and their PC can blow a power supply after 3 months of use. I said "Your power supply didn't cost 3 million dollars."
"Oh."
"And then I visited Wikipedia
Well, there could be another reason... Quoth the same article:
"Under the terms of the Transaction Agreement and Plan of Amalgamation for the sale of Intelsat dated August 16, 2004, among Intelsat, Ltd., Intelsat (Bermuda), Ltd., Zeus Holdings Limited (Zeus Holdings), Zeus Merger One Limited and Zeus Merger Two Limited, the total loss of the IS-804 satellite gives Zeus Holdings the right to not consummate the acquisition of Intelsat. Zeus Holdings has advised Intelsat that it is evaluating the impact of the IS-804 failure."
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
Speaking of that scene ... why don't we ever hear about the satellite that is filming the capture? Or are the images provided by a high-powered telescope on the moon?
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
Others have suggested that some of these "lost" satellites are merely being delivered to the CIA, NSA, DIA or other covert agency (perhaps not American). Especially if they're backups, silent until needed in a crisis, they'd be probably impossible to easily detect as working. And it's much more expensive for antisatellite weapons to target every "dead" satellite in orbit on the chance that a few are just playing dead for a new master.
--
make install -not war