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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."
All links are from their site. Here is a image of the coverage area of the satellite:
t _foot.aspx?name=804&loc=174&spot=global t _foot_details.aspx?name=804&loc=174
:. aspx
http://www.intelsat.com/resources/coveragemaps/sa
Here is some technical data on the satellite:
http://www.intelsat.com/resources/coveragemaps/sa
Also here is some Satellite Basics
http://www.intelsat.com/resources/satellitebasics
_JS
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.
Well I didn't know so for others here is a summary of Intelsat
----
Could this possibly be related to the huge coronal mass ejection i read about Jan 15 sorry no story link but it found a pictured i140.gif
http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/16jan05/mi
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!
... 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?
*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 :)
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...
There don't appear to have been any warnings on the 14th. It's unlikely it was fried by a solar flare.
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
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?
It's those damn SPECTRE chappies again!
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
It's reasonably likely that Metal Whiskers can caused this. Nasa also has more information about this pehnomenon. Both links I've provided have nice pics.
Follow me
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.
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?
>> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"
Danger, Danger IS-804!
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Space bats, however, would have to have radar or lidar because sound cannot travel in space.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
Wikipedia can be nice because it gets to the point.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
A company's own website can't make that claim.
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.