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Geostationary GPS Satellite Galaxy 15 Out of Control
Bruce Perens writes "The Galaxy 15 commercial satellite has not responded to commands since solar flares fried its CPU in April, and it won't turn off. Intelsat controllers moved all commercial payloads to other birds except for WAAS, a system that adds accuracy to GPS for landing aircraft and finding wayward geocaches. Since the satellite runs in 'bent pipe' mode, amplifying wide bands of RF that are beamed up to it, it is likely to interfere with other satellites as it crosses their orbital slots on its way to an earth-sun Lagrange point, the natural final destination of a geostationary satellite without maneuvering power." (More below.)
Bruce continues: "The only payload that is still deliberately active on the satellite is its WAAS repeater. An attempt to overload the satellite and shut it down on May 3 caused a Notice to Airmen regarding the unavailability of WAAS for an hour. Unsaid is what will happen to WAAS, and for how long, when the satellite eventually loses its sun-pointing capability, expected later this year, and stops repeating the GPS correction signal. Other satellites can be moved into Galaxy 15's orbital slot, but it is yet unannounced whether the candidates bear the WAAS payload."
I am thinking that the X-37b with the ABL (big laser) would work wonders for just this sort of thing.
though one would want to take really really careful aim. If you hit a large spinning mirror you could fry someone else.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
And create all that space debris that will jeopardize countless other satellites?
... because a big debris cloud in orbit is a whole lot safer than one satellite in a known orbit.
I thought it would just fry the electronics with intense heat. Just how much debris would that create? Can't be much.
And nothing of value was lost.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
... and nothing of value would be lost.
(Besides, losing a few cable channels for a little while isn't much compared to actually losing satellites from debris hits. People can do without Fox News for a few days.)
Too high.
The recent anti-sat missiles which China and the USA tested just took out satellites which were in low earth orbit, 400km max. This satellite is in a geosynchronous orbit, which is about 36,000 km high (and for reference, the moon is 380,000 km away, so a moon-earth Lagrange point would make a little more sense).
And these anti-sat missiles don't even have to reach a 400 km orbit, an epileptic orbit which would intersect with earth again (but happens to intersect with another satellite first) is sufficient, that is why they could be launched from a warship. Not that taking down a geostationary sat would be impossible - since they don't zip overhead with 25,000 km/h it could actually be easier, but these weapons are not build for it and would need another booster base.
Last I checked, the FCC only mandated the switch to digital over the air and had nothing to say what format was broadcast over private networks. That decision is just based on greed. (more free bandwidth and more converter box rental fees.)
"Perl 6 gives you the big knob" -- Larry Wall
Atmoshperic entry from GEO 15 minutes after reentry burn? No way.
One that hath name thou can not otter
You have to remember even a pebble at the kinds of speeds you can get up there can be catastrophic. This is why we the people of this planet really need to be working on a strategy for cleaning all the crap leftover from dead and broken sats. As you can see here just the amount of useless dangerous shit DARPA is tracking is just unreal, and that don't count all the tiny fragments that can tear through you like a bullet.
So while blowing it up would be a spectacularly bad idea, we do need to have a way to deal with dead crap in space. As we get more and more sats, and have to deal with more solar flares and other unexpected problems, this problem is only gonna get worse. Perhaps we need to offer a couple of billion dollar bounty for the one that solves this problem?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.