New Way of Extending Satellite Life Saves Millions

coondoggie writes "A new technique to save aging satellites promises to save millions of dollars by extending the life of communications spacecraft. A process developed by researchers from Purdue University and Lockheed Martin has already saved $60 million for unnamed broadcasters by extending the service life of two communications satellites. In a nutshell the technique works by applying an advanced simulation and a method that equalizes the amount of propellant in satellite fuel tanks so that the satellite consumes all of the fuel before being retired from service. Some aging communications satellites are each equipped with four fuel tanks. If one of the tanks empties before the others, the satellite loses control and should be decommissioned, wasting the remaining fuel in the other tanks."

Comments

Re:Wow! What an innovative idea!

[Otter]

Looking at the paper (linked in the article), they're doing that and then using differential heating of the tanks to shift the fuel to rebalance them.

Sure, it seemed likely that an idea that's obvious to the morons here has been nonetheless overlooked by decades of aerospace engineers, but this time that doesn't appear to be the case.

Slashdot swamped with IDG Shills

[Frosty Piss]

Looks like IDG (ComputerWorld, ITWorld, NetworkWorld...) is really hitting Slashdot HARD, either that or they have a deal with Slashdot. Here's a partial list of the shills that regularly show up and have almost 100% article acceptance rates:

coondoggie
inkslinger77
narramissic
jcatcw
jpkunst

Looks like they spread out the work over a few shill user accounts, which is to be expected. If it's all OK and everything with the corporate ownership of Slashdot to be played by IDG, I suppose that's their business, but one would hope that they are actually getting PAID for being part of IDG's advertising program. And of course there should be disclosure so that visitors to Slashdot realize they are reading advertisements and not an article submitted by a "real" user...