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Satellite Abandoned Due To Orbital Patent

Posted by Soulskill on from the patently-ridiculous dept.

EreIamJH brings news about a commercial geostationary satellite that was launched last month. Due to a launch failure, the satellite did not reach the orbit required to perform its function. The satellite's owner, SES Americom, looked for a way to salvage the satellite, but ran into an unexpected hurdle; a Boeing patent on the lunar flyby process that would be used to correct the satellite's orbit. If another company doesn't purchase the satellite, it is likely to become another piece of space junk. The European Space Agency has posted a gallery of the maps they have put together for man-made debris in orbit around the earth.

6 of 366 comments (clear)

  1. Jurisdiction? by Kooshman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Does anybody know how this patent even has jurisdiction? I understood space to be a legal no-man's land, so any action taken there can't fall under the laws of any nation. Perhaps they could track it back to "sending the signals from earth", at which point you could do the same thing from international waters or an apathetic country.

    1. Re:Jurisdiction? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Totally. Set up a shell company abroad, sell the satellite for 1 dollar to it, that company can fix the problem outside of the ridiculous patent, then sell the satellite back to SES.

      How much did the satellite cost to build and launch? Presumably nowhere near $50m, and the sunk design cost can be reused.

      Someone should tell the insurance company that the satellite is savable.

  2. Jurisdiction? by countach · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Even if the patent is "valid", what jurisdiction would it have in space?

  3. I wonder if the satellite is faulty... by Keramos · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From the article:

    a) Industry sources say the patent is basically worthless
    b) Americom wants to collect it's insurance
    c) Third party goes to insurer, says "We'll buy the satellite and recover it ourselves"
    d) Insurer says "No one told us you could recover satellites" so we haven't taken possession of the satellite (if we did, we'd have to worry about getting rid of it, you see). BTW, good risk evaluation & mitigation, guys. I've got a sandcastle I'd like to insure for $50M vs. water damage. Interested?
    e) Third party goes to Americom, says "We'll buy the satellite and recover it ourselves"
    f) Americom ignores them, meanwhile tries real hard to de-orbit the satellite really quick.

    Now, if this were a movie/book, sticking in "QA finds a problem in the satellite before launch, PHB's decide to launch it anyway, have an unfortunate, totally unforeseen and obviously accidental problem, ditch the unit and collect from insurance" somewhere would fit in naturally.


    Hollywood is just a French movie's way of reproducing.
  4. Doesn't add up by evilviper · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Okay, so the patent won't stand up to scrutiny.

    The company is already in court, suing Boeing on an unrelated issue.

    But they won't risk violating this terrible patent, why? Clearly they're more than willing to risk a lawsuit from Boeing.

    If the patent is so obviously invalid, it won't take much effort to fight and have it invalidated. And on the off chance they fail, they can argue the issue to a judge, who will decide the value of the infringement, as opposed to Boeing, who refuses to budge.

    And time on a satellite is very, very expensive, so they will easily be making tens of millions of dollars on the deal, worst case.

    This whole story makes no sense. Sounds like something even shadier is going on under the table, and they'd prefer to use this as cover.

    --
    Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  5. Re:why don't they just by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No - dumping the satellite and collecting the insurance is the smart thing to do. The satellite was supposed to have a 15 year lifespan. With the reduced fuel after the "patented application", it only has 4 years - so they're only going to get about 1/4 the revenue, and still have to launch another one. In other words, their satellite had already lost 3/4 of its' value no matter what.

    Since this is slashdot, let's use a car analogy.

    You buy a car, and you expect it to last 15 years (okay, you buy a JAPANESE car, and expect it to last 15 years), for $30k. However, just after you take it off the dealer's lot, it gets pretty much totalled. The insurance company will pay to fix it, but it will never be the same, and they've told you that after 4 years, you'll have to scrap it because the repairs will not last beyond that time. In other words, even after everything is "fixed", you'll have to fork out for another car within 4 years ...

    You will have spent $60k for 2 cars, for 19 years of combined service, or more than $3k/year.

    Or you can take the insurance payout for the full value and buy another new car that will last 15 years. The new car is, essentially, free, so you $30k investment for 15 years brings your cost down to $2k/year.

    Scale up the numbers, and they hold true for the satellite company. Keeping the old one will saddle them with additional capital costs of almost 60%.