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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.

3 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.

  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.